Hot Tapas

Las Tapas de Lola on Dublin’s Wexford St is the hottest new restaurant opening in a good while. And the buzz about it has been immense. Rightfully so- it’s an incredible, authentic, well-executed tapas experience that we literally can’t get enough of. All too frequently, when people order tapas here, they claim it’s never as good as in Spain. It’s a big ask getting authentic cuisine away from its origins, but not at Las Tapas de Lola – here they pull it off. Here, they excel at it. Here, it’s literally a celebration of marvellous Spanish dishes, those both familiar and not so, all served up with the warmest service and genuine, palpable excitement for what they are offering.

It’s a large menu (50 dishes) as a great tapas menu should be. There’s good choice between the meat, fish and vegetable options. Absolute standouts for us are the Calamares a la Andaluza (crispy, light, flavourful), Chorizo Frito y Morcilla (robust chorizo with Spanish black pudding – heaven!), Cazuelita de Fidua (Catalan Seafood Pasta – insanely good), and the Pulpo a la Gallega (Galician style octopus with paprika and potatoes – to die for!)

Our party of six had many, many more dishes than this, eyes bigger than bellies and all that, with each one accompanied by squeals of sheer delight and orders to each other to ‘TASTE THIS ONE, QUICK’!?With dessert (churros con chocolate), two gorgeous bottles of wine, a jug of Sangria and feisty little whiskey coffees to properly finish us off, the bill came to only €280. Which we were, no doubt, delighted with!

This spot is the hottest of Hot Spots and we recommend you do yourselves a favour and get there asap.

Las Tapas de Lola, 12 Wexford St, Dublin 2, tel (01) 4244100.?See their Facebook page here for more info