Rise of a tapas culture

The past couple of years have not been easy ones for the Irish catering business. Restaurants have closed at an astonishing rate, in 2009 more than one a week and in 2010 only a few less. Against this bleak backdrop there has been one area of growth, and it’s the tapas bar.

Tapas, a Spanish tradition, have become increasingly prevalent, and not just in Ireland. They’ve been something of a worldwide phenomenon, in Europe, Asia and in America. There’s something about this easy way of tasting a large variety of tasty goodies that appeals. In Spain the tradition is so well ingrained that it’s a common way to spend a night on the town; you simply go from bar to bar and nibble on the tapas in each. It’s easy enough to get enough to eat this way, even when each individual tapa is small.

In Ireland, in general what we’ve done is take the concept and change it a little. Whereas in Spain the tapas is often free once you’ve ordered a few drinks, here that’s not the case. The other difference is in size. Irish tapas are often closer in size to a starter portion rather than a nibble. these portion sizes exist in Spain, where they’re known as ‘raciones’. And just in case you were wondering, a pintxo is a tapa, but it’s the northern Spanish name. If that looks hard to pronounce, just remember that ‘x’ is the ‘ch’ sound that we use, so it is pronounced ‘peencho’.

The real deal

One of the latest tapas bars in Dublin is the newly re-launched Ice Bar in the Four Seasons Hotel in Ballsbridge. what makes the Four Seasons offering different from many others is that there’s a Spanish chef looking after the tapas. And not just any old Spanish chef, but one who cut his teeth working with the world-famous ‘El Bulli’ team. His name is Ramon Torres.

A few months ago I got a sneak preview of Torres’ tapas on a visit to the Four Seasons and I came away much impressed. A couple of them were truly extraordinary, especially the coconut curry. That’s a combination of flavours that I’d never come across before and it was an astonishing taste explosion. But then again that’s exactly the sort of combination that made El Bulli world renowned.

Torres grew up in northern Spain near the Pyrenees in Huesca, which is in the province of Aragon. His father was a chef, so his earliest memories are of kitchens. “so you followed in the father’s footsteps?” I ask. “It wasn’t quite like that,” he tells me, “I wasn’t much of a student and my academic career was going nowhere, so I just fell into the idea of being a chef.” Torres left school and attended a catering college in Les, near Huesca, where he saw cooking as a job, not as a career. “I had no passion for it then,” he says. It was a move to Barcelona two years later that changed his mind.

El Bulli connection

The Barcelona catering college had a connection with El Bulli, which back in 1997 didn’t have the worldwide celebrity that it now has. “Chefs from El Bulli would demonstrate their methods to us students, and this new way of cooking started to really excite me. That was when I developed the passion.”

After graduation his first job was an unpaid one, but it was in one of northern Spain’s great restaurants. Mart

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