In the space of an hour I have received news of the opening of not just one but two new sherry bars in London. The team behind the restaurant Cambio de Tercio is opening Capote y Toros (pictured here) in South Kensington, promising much ham and a range of 100 sherries. Opening at the end of next week, it will be at 157 Old Brompton Road, London SW5 0LJ.
And in mid May, José Pizarro, the co-founder and 'executive chef' of one of London's most successful new-wave tapas bars Brindisa, will be opening a tapas and sherry bar José on Bermondsey Street. I'm told by José's publicist that the list of Spanish wines and sherries has been assembled by 'wine legends Tim Atkin MW and Jo Ahearne MW', the former being one of my wine-writing colleagues, the latter a senior wine buyer at Marks & Spencer. It will be at 104 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UB, tel 020 7403 4902, but it will not take reservations www.josepizarro.com.
Both of these new establishements are described ominously as 'intimate' but José also plans to open a larger place, more of a restaurant, in the Borough area called Pizarro. This can surely only be good news for sherry. Let' s just hope that people order it and realise what a bargain it is currently.
These new places join the following London sherry/tapas bars that I and my 68,000 Twitter followers can think of.
Barrafina (brother of the Spanish restaurant Fino and always with queues outside, it seems to me), Barrica, Brindisa (several branches), Dehesa, Fernandez & Wells, Meson Don Felipe (grandaddy of them all), Morito (an offshoot of Moro in Exmouth Market), The Opera Tavern, El Parador, Pepito (in Kings Cross and Canary Wharf, sponsored by Gonzalez Byass but with only a limited range of sherries), Pinchito (near Old Street), El Pirata (old style, in Mayfair) and Saltyard (under the same ownership as Dehesa and The Opera Tavern).