Telephone: 020-7813 8010
Address: 33 Charlotte Street, London W1
Rating: 16/20
Blond on blond: blond walls, blond floor, blond tables, blond chair backs, blond lights - blond almost everything, except, that is, the people and the food.
Fino, as you might have guessed from the name, is a Spanish restaurant, but it's very much new Spanish as opposed to traditional Spanish. It is sleek Spanish, chic Spanish, fast-lane Spanish, more Gehry than Gaudá, more Raul than Di Stefano. All of which just goes to show how misleading outward signs can be, because Fino is the creation of two first-timers of a very British pedigree - Sam and Eddie Hart, sons of Tim and Stefa Hart, proprietors and civilised guiding spirit behind top-line luxury hotel Hambleton Hall, as well as Nottingham's top bistro, Hart's. Clearly, their respected parents have decided that they must go out into the world and earn their own crust, which they have elected to do by selling it - the crust, that is.
Fino is downstairs but, as Hakkasan has proved, downstairs is no impediment to fashionable smartness as long as you get the ceilings high enough above the head and some flattering lighting. Fino is smart, but not in-your-face smart, not smart enough to make me feel like a fashion leper because I was wearing grey flannel trousers, jacket and tie, but smart enough to make me feel that I was smart by going there. It's comfortable smart. All that blondness is soothing as well as smoothing.
The next thing that Sam and Eddie got right is the menu, which is tapas writ large. There are loads of different dishes in not very large helpings, from which you are encouraged to choose lots. It is rather like those Chinese dim sum helpings, where everything come in threes, which, of course, makes for serious trading when there are only two of you, as there was of Tucker and myself. However, we were able to settle on a division of the spoils quite amicably, because we are civilised folk.
Fino makes it easy for you, too, by offering two fixed-price selections, one at £15.95 a head and the other at £25, each for a minimum of two people, or you can go off-piste and order from the 55 dishes listed on the á la carte. In passing, although the general tenor of the menu is mainstream carnivore, vegetarians could eat better than in many a determinedly vegetarian restaurant.
Tucker and I took the easy way out and went for the Fino Gourmet selection, which listed most of the things I wanted to eat - namely pan tomaquet (bread with garlicky tomato smeared on it); pimentos de padron; jamon de Jabugo; crispy fried calamari and shrimp; clams with sherry and ham; langoustines la plancha (ie, grilled); classic tortilla; ham croquette; green salad; pincho morunos; milk-fed lamb cutlets; and tumbet - to which we added crema catalana and torcinello de cielo by way of pudding. Oh, and we started off with olives, caperberries and toasted almonds, to which I have an unbreakable addiction.
The first thing to say is that Fino's food is very easy to like and, by the same token, to eat more of. The flavours are all upfront and full of beans, as it were. They don't mess about. The Jabugo ham was about the most sophisticated taste on show, a really exquisite balance of sweetness and intense meatiness, melting over the tongue and filling the mouth. I was particularly taken with the cheery delicacy of the clams beefed up with ham and sherry; pincho morunos, a kebab legacy of the Moors, lit up with cumin, coriander and ginger; the firm and tender lamb cutlets, thin as my wallet, which means that they can be seared briefly and cooked through without becoming as tough as a shoe sole; and the hearty, filling tumbet, a combination of aubergine and potato, filled in the blanks. It's not that the other dishes missed the spot, but these ones stood out for me. There weren't a lot of leftovers of any kind when they cleared the table.
The service is smooth and winsome. The well-structured wine list encompasses a fine array of sherries, which I strongly recommend as the ideal accompaniment to all the food. It makes a fair showing, too, of acceptably priced bottles, not just from Spain, and of newer wines from less famous corners of the wine-producing universe. Tucker and I, however, stuck to Manzanilla Pasada throughout, and I was struck by how well it went with just about everything.
In particular, it struck up an intimate and happy relationship with the meat dishes, believe it or not. Believe it, and try for yourself.
The bill? Yes, well, the bill came to £99 - that is, £25 a head for the set meal, plus £15 for puddings and nibbles, with sherry and water accounting for the rest. There is no need to opt for the cultured excess that Tucker and I enjoyed. One word of warning: the address is given as 33 Charlotte Street, but the entrance, a rather restrained affair, is actually in Rathbone Street. It is well worth seeking out.
· Open Lunch, Mon-Fri, 12 noon-2.30pm; dinner, Mon-Sat, 6-10.30pm Menus Lunch & dinner: Classic selection (minimum two people), £15.95 a head for nine dishes; Gourmet selection (minimum two people), £25 a head for 12 dishes. Wheelchair access & WC.
