To cure the Monday-Blues this week, V-man and I popped down to the newly opened Bellota Bar Y Tapas on North Street, Brighton. The restaurant has newly opened in the place of La Tasca, and has a completely different feel to how it was before. I was always a big fan of La Tasca so I was interested to see what this would be like.
The first thing I noticed is the decor is much more sophisticated, you arrive by the huge Cava bar, where you can enjoy a pre-meal drink. This is also the UK’s first ever stand-alone cava bar I’m told, and there is a huge selection to chose from.
Well it would be rude not to
We sipped Cava and flicked through the menu, we really were spoilt for choice, it took us quite a while to finally decide on an order. Their portions are quite big, so the normal order is 3 tapas per person, but our eyes were bigger than our stomachs to we went for 4 each (oops!). The price of dishes ranges from around £3-4 for a vegetable dish, to £5-7 for a meat or fish dish. They also offer paella and specialise in hand-carved Spanish hams.
Bread of the day
Slow-cooked Pork Cheeks and Patatas Bravas
Spanish Omlette with Spinach
Gambas al ajillo – prawns cooked in olive oil, chilli and garlic
Seabass fillet with romesco sauce
Two greedy little piglets
The food was utterly amazing – one of the best tapas meals I’ve had in a long time. My favourite dishes were the Seabass with spicy tomato sauce and I also loved the aubergine rolls which were stuffed with rustica tomatos, sweet piquillo peppers and goats cheese. Delicious! I was also very impressed at the selection of vegetarian choices they had. Vince loved all the meat dishes, especially the pork cheeks and the paprika and garlic marinated ribs. He even asked the waitress if the pork cheeks were face or bum cheeks as we were debating it and couldn’t agree on an answer — I can confirm, they are face cheeks, if you were wondering! After 4 tapas each we were so full, you think the dishes are small with tapas, but it all soon adds up, the dishes were all very filling.
With just a tiny bit more room left, we finished our meals with cocktails and of course, Churros!
Overall, I had a lovely meal at Bellota Bar y Tapas and will definitely be returning.
Have you tried Bellota yet? What did you think?
*We were invited to Bellota Bar y Tapas for the purpose of this review.
All views and opinions expressed in this post are my own.*
