Barrafina is a special authentic Spanish tapas restaurant in London. Barrafina Kings Cross is the latest of Barrafina’s four London restaurants. I’m not going to hide my love for Barrafina, I can’t even if I tried. Barrafina instigated my love affair with Spanish cuisine, tapas-style dining, and dining around a bar overlooking an open kitchen. Now, I’m not going to say Barrafina pioneered any of those trends but it sure executes all of them perfectly.

Barrafina Kings Cross doesn’t disappoint. It has the excellent aesthetic of the other restaurants and an added rustic feel with its very high exposed ceiling. It’s located in Coal Drop Yard, which itself has a rustic vibe to it. The service is utterly friendly and attentive as usual, and the food… oh, the food…

The food

First Round

It’s tapas style so the food comes when ready. The first dishes to arrive were morcilla croquetas, pan con tomate, padron peppers, and patatas bravisimas.

The croquetas were awesome as always, the pan con tomate remains the best Shiima’s ever had, and she really enjoyed the padron peppers and patatas bravas. I didn’t touch them, I had my eyes on bigger things to come 😁.

Second Round

The second bunch to arrive were the lamb chops, sweetbreads, espardenyes and chicken thighs, and presa iberica.

Esperdenyes is a sea cucumber, which I’ve never had before and it tasted really unexpected. I couldn’t tell if it was fish or plant (it’s fish, just googled it 😄), but it was delicious. More delicious than the chicken thighs which were relatively bland and not as succulent as I’d hoped.

The lamb chops were decent. I’ve definitely had better, but these were enjoyable. It was neither particularly spicy, or sweat, or flavourful. Just a simple marinade. I really enjoyed the tumbet wrapped in pancetta.

My favourite from this round was the presa iberica. Lightly grilled succulent piece of pork which went really well with the aja blanco 👌🏾.

Neither of us liked the sweetbreads. Too salty and a weird texture.

We ordered the oxtail rice from the specials menu, but we were told it’d finished. The couple beside us had it and it looked gorgeous. I almost ordered the black rice, but it came with Iberian pork so Shiima wasn’t going to share it with me and that was too much rice. But I’ll be ready for it next time 😊.

Dessert

We ordered the lionesas to share. It was great. Spanish style profiteroles filled with indulgent vanilla ice cream and doused with rich chocolate sauce.

Verdict

As might already be evident, we really enjoyed Barrafina Kings Cross. The vibe is excellent, the service excellent, and the food is excellent. It’s excellent. We recommend for casual dates and spectacular tapas with friends or family. Do consider that you can’t reserve a spot and depending on the time you get there, there’ll be a queue but it often moves faster than they estimate and it’s worth the wait. Barrafina is moderately expensive too, or maybe we just order too much.

Cuisine: Spanish Tapas
Dress Code: Casual
Shiima’s Star Dish: Pan Con Tomate
Amen’s Star Dish: Morcilla croquetas
Price: £30-£40pp (excluding alcohol)
Rating: 5 out of 5

Barrafina Kings Cross
Coals Drop Yard
N1C 4AB
Barrafina doesn’t take reservations.