From one floor to another
José Tapas Bar, 104 Bermondsey Street, London
The doors have just opened at 104 Bermondsey Street. The towering glass obelisk of the Shard watches over José Tapas Bar and its surrounding, laidback neighbourhood. I know that in a short space of time all the team here will be hard at work. The barrel tables outside taken up by folk enjoying a glass of Albariño and plate of anchovies in the sun. A line of eager diners will start to form, hungry for small plates promising them an early afternoon trip to Spain. José is that good, it’s worth the wait.
It’s strange for me to be sat here alone, writing at the bar with a glass of Estrella and bowl of gazpacho fresh enough to help cool a muggy day in the city. Tapas, for me, is a social pastime—sitting with friends or loved ones as little dish after little dish dress the tabletop; grilled sardines, opaque eyes meeting mine, helpless, as all I am thinking is Damn, they look tasty!, or a tortilla oozing with yolky potatoes. Yes, it’s a shame not to be sharing this but, truthfully, it’s certainly no hardship to enjoy.
The two chefs work together to my left; one on the grill, the other finishing the plates on the pass or slicing wafer thin cuts from a pig’s leg almost sweating in it’s own nutty meatiness. You’ll be hard pushed to find a smaller kitchen than this. I worked in one in Versailles, at Le Sept, a wonderful restaurant à vins along rue de Montreuil. I spent the days trying not to bump into Chef Ludo. We worked methodically through the checks as the temperature continued to rise throughout summer. Then a canicule (heatwave) and we were forced to close for three days. The day before, the thermometer in the kitchen had climbed into the forties—the gas burners adding to our misery as Chef Ludo continued to grill andouillette, basically a thick sausage made of offal, and drop white slabs of cabillaud into a pot rolling with boiling water. The cod soon plated on a bed of rice and dressed with beurre blanc.
‘Put bluntly, andouillette smells like a farmyard. Before anybody has bothered to come along and clean it.’
Jay Rayner: A really good dinner carries with it the faint whiff of death
Chefs, as most of us have seen from The Bear, work in stressful, often unpleasant conditions. There’s no excuse but one can at least see why some of them turn into cantankerous, unapproachable brutes. Fortunately, Chef Ludo was always a patient, gentle man.
I’ve come to José not only because it’s like stepping into a true Spanish taberna, perhaps down an ancient stone alley in Cáceres, with the flow of Spanish and straightforward dishes one would expect to find in tabernas across the country: patatas bravas, croquettes, boquerones, pan con tomate. No, I’ve also come to José as it gives me a good excuse to introduce another Spanish treasure a long way from Bermondsey, nestled in the northern city of Burgos.
Bar Patillas is a little like falling into the plotline from Midnight in Paris, when Owen Wilson ends up going back to a Paris of old at the stroke of midnight—finding himself in famed bars towards the end of the Belle Époque sitting across from famous faces; Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Dalí. Bar Patillas is that magical Hollywood isn’t needed, it transports you all by itself.
On my first visit, the bartender had the most incredible patillas (sideburns), he served each guest as though they were family and, without apparent reason or occasion, soon left the bar untended to join a table with a guitar and launched into song. The surrounding tables broke off their conversations and before long there was just myself and travel companion, not knowing the language, unable to sing along. The old-timers led the way and took to the pockets of floor space to dance.
It was a joyous night and has stayed with me all these years; the feeling of being sat within those old walls covered in newspapers discoloured by the smoke of time, and the passing of generations. Bar Patillas lends reason to why my orbit never strays far from the floor—be it a pub, restaurant, coffee shop, or lowly dive bar. It’s those moments to be a part of something. The shared experiences. The passion. And the hard work that underlies it all. From one floor to another, they all matter in their own way.
Lunch service in José continues around me. I put down my pen and lift my fork. I can wait no longer and attack a sardine.