Social wine and tapas is a wine shop and tapas place owned by Jason Atherton. This was our first introduction to Jason Artheron’s menu and let’s just say, we were hooked. So much so, we have since been to Social Sunday featuring my faves as well as had the full Pollen street social experience!
Like I said, this was our introduction and it happened on a random summer Thursday evening back in June 2018. Neal had been itching to go and decided today was the day and the rest is food history. We sampled a few plates of the menu in true tapas style fashion and
The croquettes set the tone – delish! I am still not quite sure how I feel about croquettes in general, I know random, but, yeah, lol. Now the peppers were interesting, I still think they were jalapenos but apparently it’s green pepper (chillies). Anyway, these were grilled peppers, served on sauce. The smokiness from the grill, slight bitter after taste (synonymous with green peppers) defined this dish, it was really good. The calamari here is one I truly like. Usually, calamari are heavily breaded so much so, I feel like it’s more batter than the calamari, you know? Well these were more calamari than batter and tasted fresh with the zing of citrus.
We also sampled 2 meat dishes, well, pork and lissstteeeen! First was the mangalista pork and boi! It was too good – crispy on the outside, medium rare on the inside served with cider vinegar and baby gem! The other pork dish was a pork belly (ha! of course) and it was yummy – crackling skin with juicy grilled meat set on top of the best tasting sauce. The kind of sauce that you need bread to mop it up, yeah, that kind of sauce! Can I also just point out the portion sizes? I think these are generous to be honest and even with these few dishes, I almost didn’t order pudding… almost!
You know that saying, “there is always room for pudding” well, with the samples we just had, I really shouldn’t have had anymore.. as if! Trust me, I made room for this pudding! why? because peanut butter parfait! exactly! need I say more? – layers of chocolate, peanut butter, topped with strawberry and served in its juice? Boiiiii!! Dang it was scrumptious! It was not just the peanut butter goodness, we also had a salted caramel dessert which was just lush!
Accompanying all of this deliciousness were some amazing wines.
I reckon this has got to be the best tapas place in London, small plates of fantastic food served with equally fantastic wine? Issa WIN!!!
Cheers
Ndidi
