“ Welcome to my weekly blog, a scrapbook of observations, musings and plenty of opinion about Tapas bar and Spanish restaurant life in the UK and beyond. Drawing on my wide and long professional experience in the hospitality business in both Spain and the UK and fully recognising the profound differences that exist in bar and restaurant culture in the two kingdoms, I will always urge operators in the kingdom with screw-top wine to create a hybrid tapas operation. In other words a bar that recognises those cultural differences through home grown style of operation, food and service but which strives for Spanish authenticity through design, food & beverages and servicestaff. It’s a balancing act which the customer should not be aware of. In their eyes they are in a back street in Barcelona not the high street in Barnstable. It’s a challenge to create a Barcelona bar on the back of the idiosyncracies built up on hundreds of years of British pub heritage. Yet it is that affinity with casual pub dining that makes the UK a great place for tapas dining.

In these informal and small plate dining-out times It’s easy to understand the increasing appeal in the UK of Tapas. Wherever and whatever, I continue with a great passion for Spanish culinary life and in particular to raise the profile and standard of real tapas in the UK. Through this blog I look forward to sharing my Spanish food and restaurant life with operators new and established.”

Ricky M.