The Little Taperia (Bar, Restaurant)

Top 10 things you need to know about The Little Taperia restaurant:

1) It’s small, in an intimate sense, and not in a ship-in-glass-bottle way, where every time you turn your head you hit the person sat behind you in the face with your hair and get caught up in each others conversations.

2) It’s the sort of place you yearn for in the midst of a stressful work day. Later, once you’ve turned off the computer and left all that behind, you’ll be sat beside a flickering candle, clutching a blackberry gin and tonic, and basking in the gentle (and oddly-calming) buzz around you.

3) Not ordering the Morcilla Scotch eggs with piquillo pepper chutney is foodie sacrilege – the bronzed breadcrumb coating is crispy and the quails egg oozes to perfection.

4) The restaurant has two rooms – the front has its own bar and high chair tables for post-work drinks, or pre-drinking-drinks, while the back room has an open kitchen and feels altogether more sheltered from the steadily increasing bustle of Tooting; the home to Sadiq Khan, no less.

5) The croquetas are as smooth and creamy as the gin. OK, the gin isn’t creamy but it tastes like you always imagine when you watch a TV advert for it.

6) Many foodies - myself included - struggle with tapas in London, suspicious of the waiter when he recommends ordering 5 or 6 dishes to share. However, you’ll spend so long proclaiming satisfied “oh”s and dissecting what makes each dish so good, that by the time it’s gone you’ll realise that you are, in fact, full.

7) Highly recommended is the Iberica Abanico (shoulder of pork) with Piquilla Peppers. You will inevitably lose yourself in the tender, perfectly cooked meat. Just try to avoid suddenly talking like a Marks & Spencer’s advert; your friends might get jealous. Then again, it is tapas, so be nice and share.

8) There is a choice of two desserts – a Santiago tart and a pile of churros with chocolate sauce. Enquire which you should go for and the table next door will probably tell you “both”.

9) After around 8.30pm on a week night the atmosphere changes and feels like sitting in a low-key but lovely bar in Central London – without the price tag.

10) This South London tapas restaurant may not have a flashy, highly sought-after postcode but it’s what’s on the inside that counts, eh?...read more