Monday, August 24, 2015

The Search for Delicious 8: Granada and the Art of Tapas

Tapas are Spain’s most palpable contribution to the international gastronomic scene, and in the past twenty years or so, starting with legitimately forward thinking kitchens and trickling down to those attempting to appear so, tapas or small plates have been the calling card of the cutting edge.  And in and of itself, the tapa is a very different way of approaching food.  Rather than one large dish, you can have many smaller dishes, each self-contained little worlds that can then bounce off of each other in ways that wouldn’t be possible with more bulky dishes. 

But focusing on the purely culinary also misses the forest for the trees, because the true genius of tapas is the social element, how it lends itself to a certain mode of eating and drinking and talking.  Rather than simply a mode of serving food and drink, tapas are a way of life, and Granada practices the art at one of the highest levels in Spain. 

The vast majority of tapas in Granada come free with a drink, which, while not unique or even uncommon in Spain generally, really makes its difference felt with the quality and size of the tapa.  In Madrid, you can get free tapas, but they are hardly ever as well executed, diverse, and generous as in Granada. 



So where all did we go?  The best place of the lot is a wine bar called Taberna La Tana, located in the Realejo neighborhood.  The wine selection is superb, with bottles from all over Spain and elsewhere lining the wall.  Mostly standing room only.  More upscale than your average old man bar, but totally worth it.  



Right across the street there's La Oliva, and if you're craving seafood, check out Los Diamantes II.  Just down the street, I reccomend Coco's Bar and Tapas, where we had a bountiful Sunday meal of great tapas, ranging from clams to huevos rotos.



We were in Granada for Semana Santa, so religious vibes were not in short supply, but if you find yourself craving a décor of Christ heavy iconography as well as some tasty tapas, head over to El Tabernaculo on Calle Navas.  Pictures of Christ adorn the walls as well as plenty of figures of the people in pointy hats that aren’t KKK.  Inside, it’s Semana Santa all year long.  Fun fact:  the hat is called el capricho and predates the KKK by several hundred years. 



Another spot to check out was where we met up with our friend Paradise, called Bar Damasqueros, and enjoyed some tapas for lunch.  Look for the giant orange Cheshire cat across the street.  There’s also evidently a quality vegetarian restaurant right next to the cat, called El Jergon if that happens to be your preference.



The “golden equation” is 1 drink = 1 tapa.   So, circling back to the social element, if you’re with a group of 4 or 5 people as we were in Granada, one round of drinks is going to get you a lot of food, normally either a larger portion of a single tapa, or a smorgasbord of several different tapas.  And with each round, you can expect even more food each time.

 So what are you actually getting?  Olives, beautiful tomato slices with olive oil, jamón, salchicon, butifarra, chorizo, sobrassada, juevos rotos, clams, goat cheese, blue cheese, fried pimientos de padrón, lacón, anchovies, mussels, chopitos (fried mini-squids), montaditos with a thin layer of salmorejo topped with anchovies…in other words a bevy of treats.



Being both food enthusiasts and scientifically minded folk, we did fairly extensive field work focused on the question:  do the tapas get better the more drinks you order?  In general, the most conclusive result we got was the phenomenon of what I will dub “the rabbit hole effect.”  To whit, the more you pursue the illusive “perfect tapa,” the stranger (and consequently more fun, at least in my book) the night becomes. 

As much as we could gather, there is some sort of system to the whole tapas thing, although this varies from restaurant to restaurant.  The first tapa is what you could call an opener, and while you should be cognizant of the quality of the opener is, you shouldn’t write off a place for a not so great first tapa.  The opener is the standard; anybody that comes off the street and orders a drink will get this one.  The restaurant isn’t going to give their best tapa to someone who’s only paid 2,50 euros or less for a drink. 

But then you can normally expect something more exciting on the second tapa.  And this is where it gets interesting.  At first, we started to assume that it was a sort of ladder progression, each subsequent tapa gets better, a Spanish stairway to heaven.  And TO SOME EXTENT this is true, but I got the impression that there are only maybe 5 or 6 tapas that are prepared each night, regardless of how many drinks you order, eventually you’re going to get repeats.  So it’s not an infinite progression to deliciousness, constantly ascending higher and higher.  And this is not to say that repeats are a bad thing by any means…what was delicious at the second tapa isn’t going to be something you turn your nose up at tapa #4. 

But it might mean that it’s time to go to another bar, which is another beautiful aspect of the whole process.  After you’ve exhausted the possibilities at one place, you can go somewhere else, and the mystery begins anew.  The whole experience hinges on both blind faith and good faith:  you put blind faith into the kitchen, surrendering yourself to what’s in the cards for you that night, and also making gestures of good faith towards the establishment as a whole, by spending time and money there. 

There’s also the question of the drink itself.  Does a glass of wine yield a better tapa than a caña?  What about a doble?  What about a cocktail?  What about a bottle of wine?  While our fieldwork was extensive in the various permutations, we didn’t come to any hard and fast conclusions. 

Regardless, during this time, you’re talking, laughing, recalling memories and making new ones, as you relish the finer things in life, floating from one bar to the next, amongst people doing the same. 


In general.  Be bold.  Explore the gastronomic treasures that Granada has to offer.  Pick a place, go inside, order a drink.  The worse that’s going to happen is that they’ll give you free food. 

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