In this guide
Spanish food in London has quietly become one of the city’s strongest cuisines, and it splits into two things that barely resemble each other: tapas counters where you stand and eat with your hands, and Basque asadors built around a coal fire and a single enormous piece of beef.
💡 The Short Version: Sabor is the best, and the suckling pig is upstairs. Lurra and Ibai do proper Basque asador beef. José is standing-room, no bookings, and the best cheap plate of jamón in London. Pizarro is the same chef with tables. And Barrafina is the counter everyone copies.
📊 The evidence behind this guide. Nothing here is ranked on one visit. This pass reads 9 sources carrying 102 citations across 49 named restaurants. 20 restaurants are named by two or more independent sources; 3 hold a Michelin star. Built on: seven independent publications and the three Spanish restaurants Michelin has starred — Sabor, Legado and Mountain. Evidence rebuilt 30 August 2026 · How we rank →
Where they are
| If you are near… | Where to eat |
|---|---|
| Mayfair & Soho | Sabor, The Counter at Sabor, Barrafina, Lobos, Dehesa |
| Marylebone | Lurra, ALTA (Soho) |
| Farringdon & Clerkenwell | Ibai, Bar Kroketa |
| Exmouth Market | Morito |
| Shoreditch | Legado, Ember Yard |
| Bermondsey | José, Pizarro |
| Fitzrovia | Salt Yard |
| Covent Garden & King’s Cross | Copita, Parrillan |
| Borough & south | Escocesa (Stoke Newington), Maresco |
Price guide: ££ £15–£35 · £££ £40–£70 · ££££ £90+.
The best
Sabor, Mayfair
££££ · 6 min from Piccadilly Circus · Michelin star · Cited by 5 sources
Nieves Barragán Mohacho cooks her mother’s Basque and Galician repertoire downstairs and roasts suckling pig in a wood oven upstairs — two restaurants stacked in one building, and you should know which one you have booked.
Downstairs is a counter and a tapas menu; upstairs is El Asador, where the suckling pig comes out of the wood oven with skin you can hear from the next table, alongside Galician octopus. The pig is the reason to climb the stairs.
££££, closed Sunday, books weeks ahead — and the upstairs asador books separately. One of three Spanish restaurants in London holding a Michelin star.
Legado, Shoreditch
££££ · 2 min from Shoreditch High Street · Michelin star · Cited by 3 sources
Nieves Barragán Mohacho’s second restaurant after Sabor, cooking regional Spanish food rarely seen this side of the Pyrenees — and it took a Michelin star within two years.
The menu works through regions most London Spanish restaurants ignore: Extremadura, Asturias, the Canaries. Expect suckling lamb, unfamiliar cuts cooked over fire, and vegetable dishes given the same weight as the meat.
££££, closed Monday, and it books weeks ahead. The more adventurous of her two rooms, and the harder to get into.
Basque asador
A grill house built around a coal fire and aged beef. London has two proper ones.
Lurra, Marylebone
££££ · 3 min from Marble Arch · Cited by 2 sources
Aged Galician beef and whole turbot over coals, from the Donostia team — the Basque asador format done properly, which means the fire does everything and the kitchen does very little else.
The txuleta is the order: aged Galician beef, cooked over embers, rested and carved at the table, and priced by weight. Whole turbot grilled in a basket is the other, and between them they are the whole argument for the restaurant.
££££ and it books weeks ahead. Order the beef for two and nothing else; it is enough.
Ibai, Farringdon
££££ · 4 min from Barbican · Cited by 3 sources
Fire-led Basque cooking and some of the best beef in the country, from the team behind Donostia — a tribute to the original Ibai in San Sebastián, and one of the few London rooms where the grill is genuinely the kitchen.
Aged beef over coals, whole fish, and vegetables given the same treatment — leeks and peppers charred properly rather than passed over the fire for effect. The menu is short because the format does not allow for a long one.
££££, closed Sunday, and it books weeks ahead. Small room; the counter seats look straight at the grill.
Counters and tapas
Barrafina
£££ · counter seating, bookable · Cited by 5 sources
A counter and nothing else — no tables, and you eat facing the chefs. The format was imported wholesale from Barcelona’s Cal Pep and it changed how London eats tapas.
Order from the specials board rather than the printed menu: prawns, razor clams, tortilla, and whatever came in that morning, cooked a foot in front of you. The jamón is carved to order and worth the money.
You can book, which is worth knowing because the group’s reputation for queues is out of date — reservations go through its own site. Walk-ins are still taken if there is space at the counter. Five London sites now: Dean Street, Adelaide Street, Drury Lane, Coal Drops Yard and Borough Yards, and Dean Street remains the best of them.
José, Bermondsey
£££ · standing room · no bookings · Cited by 4 sources
José Pizarro’s standing-room sherry bar on Bermondsey Street — a handful of stools, a lot of jamón, and no way to book.
The format is Andalucian: sherry by the copita and small plates to go with it, ordered a couple at a time as you drink rather than all at once. Jamón ibérico carved to order, tortilla, prawns and croquetas. It holds about twenty people and feels like forty.
£££, walk-in only, and full from six. Go early or late, expect to stand, and treat it as a bar that feeds you rather than a restaurant.
Twenty covers, standing room only, and no bookings. Jose Pizarro’s first place on Bermondsey Street. Photo: Ewan-M, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Pizarro, Bermondsey
£££ · a few doors up · Cited by 3 sources
The sit-down sibling to José a few doors up — same chef, tables instead of stools, and you can book, which is the entire difference and a significant one on a Friday.
Larger plates than the bar: suckling pig, whole fish, slow-cooked lamb, with the tapas menu still available if you want it. The cooking is the same hand; the format lets it stretch.
£££, book a few days ahead. Choose this one if you want a chair and a conversation, and José if you want the atmosphere.
Jose Pizarro’s larger Bermondsey Street room, where you can actually book a table. Photo: Bex.Walton, CC BY 2.0.
Salt Yard, Fitzrovia
£££ · Spanish-Italian · Cited by 2 sources
One of the rooms that started London’s small-plates habit, and still doing the dish it became known for.
Courgette flowers stuffed with goat’s cheese and drizzled with honey is the signature and has been on the menu since the beginning — one of the few genuinely famous small plates in the city. The rest of the menu runs Spanish and Italian charcuterie side by side.
£££, book a few days ahead. Fitzrovia, and calmer than the Soho tapas bars at almost any hour.
Spanish-Italian small plates, and the courgette flower stuffed with goat’s cheese has been on since it opened. Photo: Ewan-M, CC BY-SA 2.0.
The new wave
ALTA, Soho
£££ · Kingly Court · Cited by 3 sources
Basque live-fire cooking in Soho — everything routed through the grill, including the vegetables, which is the part most fire restaurants treat as an afterthought and this one does not.
Expect txuleta, whole fish and charred greens, plus pintxos at the bar if you are not eating a full meal. The room is built around the fire and the smoke is part of the experience.
£££ and it books weeks ahead. One of the most-booked openings of recent years; the bar takes walk-ins when the tables are gone.
Bar Kroketa, Clerkenwell
££ · croquettes and little else · Cited by 3 sources
Built around the croqueta and not much else — a single-dish bar, done properly, which is a braver idea than it sounds.
Croquetas in a rotating list of fillings: jamón, mushroom, salt cod, whatever is on that week. The test of a croqueta is the béchamel — it should be barely holding together inside a crisp shell, and here it is. Sherry and vermouth to go with them.
££, walk-in. Cheap, small, and the easiest table in this guide to get.
Morito, Exmouth Market
££ · a counter, no bookings for small tables · Cited by 4 sources
The small, loud offshoot of Moro next door — a dozen seats at the counter and a menu that changes constantly, which is why regulars come back more often than they do to the parent restaurant.
Spanish and North African small plates: crispy aubergine with honey, beetroot borani, grilled quail. Order six or seven between two and keep going if it is working. The counter is the seat to want.
££, walk-in only. Exmouth Market, and full by half past six every evening. There is a second site in Hackney with the same kitchen.
Copita, Soho
££ · d’Arblay Street · Cited by 3 sources
A narrow Soho bar built for standing, small plates, and sherry by the copita — the small tulip glass it is named after, and the correct way to drink it.
The menu is a blackboard that changes daily: jamón, tortilla, croquetas, whatever fish came in, ordered a plate at a time. High stools and a narrow ledge rather than tables; it is designed to be leaned on.
£££, walk-in, closed Sunday. Go at six before it fills, or after nine when the first wave has gone.
Small plates and sherry, standing up if it is busy. No bookings for most of the room. Photo: Ewan-M, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Dehesa, Soho
££ · Carnaby Street · Cited by 3 sources
A corner site off Carnaby Street running Spanish and Italian small plates side by side, which is rarer than it sounds — most kitchens pick one and stay there.
From the Salt Yard group, so the courgette flowers with goat’s cheese and honey are here too, alongside Spanish charcuterie and Italian pasta on the same menu. Ibérico pork is the dish the name points at — a dehesa is the oak pasture the pigs forage in.
£££, book a few days ahead. Corner windows onto two streets, which makes it one of the better rooms in Soho for watching it go by.
Spanish-Italian small plates off Carnaby Street, and one of the better places to eat alone at the counter. Photo: Ewan-M, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Parrillan, King’s Cross
£££ · Coal Drops Yard · grill at the table · Cited by 2 sources
You get your own small charcoal grill at the table and cook the skewers yourself — a format nothing else in London offers, and considerably more fun than it sounds.
Skewers arrive raw and you grill them over the coals in front of you: prawns, ibérico pork, vegetables, cooked to your own timing. Sides and pintxos come from the kitchen. From the Barrafina family, so the sourcing is serious even when the format is playful.
£££, closed Sunday and Monday, and it books weeks ahead. Coal Drops Yard, on a terrace — the better tables are outside.
Lobos, Soho and Borough
££ · under a railway arch at Borough · Cited by 3 sources
A tapas bar built around meat, tucked under the railway arches at Borough and on a narrow Soho site — the name means wolves and the menu does not argue with it.
Ibérico presa and pluma off the grill are the orders, along with jamón carved to order and the beef rib that most tables share. The Borough room, under the arches, is the more atmospheric of the two.
£££, book ahead at Borough, particularly at weekends. Upstairs seating at both is tight; ask for a downstairs table if you want room.
Escocesa, Stoke Newington
££ · seafood tapas · Cited by 2 sources
Scottish seafood cooked the Spanish way in Stoke Newington — the name is the whole idea, and it is a better one than most fusion premises.
Shellfish from Scottish waters treated with Spanish technique: grilled langoustines, octopus, razor clams, and whatever came down from the coast that week, with sherry and Spanish wine alongside. Short menu, changing constantly.
£££, book a few days ahead. Small neighbourhood room on Stoke Newington Church Street, and busy with locals rather than visitors.
Best value
Tapas is designed to be cheap and London has mostly forgotten that. These are the places where it still is.
Markets and food halls
- Borough Market — Brindisa has traded here since the 1980s and started as an importer rather than a restaurant. The chorizo roll from its stall, with rocket and piquillo peppers, is around a fiver and is one of the great cheap lunches in London.
- Mercado Metropolitano, Elephant & Castle — a Spanish-founded food hall with several Iberian counters, and the cheapest jamón and pan con tomate in the city.
- Seven Dials Market and Arcade Food Hall both carry Spanish counters if you want one dish rather than a table.
Counters rather than tables
- José, Bermondsey — standing room, no bookings, and still the cheapest way to eat seriously good Spanish food in London.
- Barrafina at the counter — the counter is the only seating, so you are not paying for a table.
- Bar Kroketa — a plate of croquettes and a glass of fino is a genuinely cheap meal.
How to order
- Order tapas in waves rather than all at once. It stops the bill running away and it is how the format is meant to work.
- Sherry is underpriced almost everywhere in London and is the correct drink with jamón — a copita of fino usually costs less than a glass of house white.
What to know
- José and Barrafina take no bookings. Go early or expect to wait.
- Basque txuleta is aged dairy-cow beef and tastes nothing like a supermarket steak. Order it rare and sliced for the table.
- Order tapas in rounds, not all at once — that is the format, and kitchens will pace it for you.
- Ask for sherry recommendations. Every restaurant here has a proper list and almost nobody orders from it.
- Service charge of 12.5% is discretionary and standard.
Continue planning your London trip
- 🇮🇹 Best Italian Restaurants in London
- 🥘 Best Middle Eastern Restaurants
- 🍽️ Eat in London: Restaurants, Food Markets & Quick Food Hub
- ⭐ Special Occasion Restaurants in London
- 🏙️ Bermondsey Area Guide
- 🛍️ Mayfair Area Guide
Common questions
What is the best Spanish restaurant in London?
Sabor in Mayfair, where Nieves Barragán Mohacho cooks her mother's Basque and Galician repertoire downstairs and roasts suckling pig upstairs. It holds a Michelin star. Her second restaurant, Legado in Shoreditch, cooks regional Spanish food rarely seen at this level here.
Where do I get the best steak in London?
For Basque asador beef, Lurra in Marylebone and Ibai in Farringdon both serve aged Galician txuleta over coals — a different animal, literally, from the British steakhouse cut.
What is a Basque asador?
A grill house built around a coal fire, cooking aged beef and whole turbot with almost nothing else done to them. Lurra and Ibai are London's two proper examples.
Where can I eat tapas cheaply in London?
José on Bermondsey Street is standing-room with a handful of stools and no bookings — jamón, sherry and a few plates comes in well under £25. Barrafina's counters are more expensive but you eat at the bar rather than paying for a table, and they can be booked.
Do Spanish restaurants in London take bookings?
Most do, including the Barrafina counters, which take reservations through their own site. José on Bermondsey Street is the notable exception — standing room, no bookings, and you queue. Pizarro a few doors along is the bookable version of the same chef's cooking.
