London has had Spanish food for longer than it has had tapas bars. A Spanish delicatessen has been trading on Portobello Road since 1957, and the sherry-and-ham rooms came decades before the small-plates boom of the 2010s. Knowing the difference between the two matters, because the same word on two menus can mean a £9 plate or a £38 one.
Tapas in London is now mostly a restaurant format rather than a bar snack: you order four or five small plates for the table, they arrive when they are ready, and the bill adds up faster than anyone expects. Our guide to eating cheaply in London covers value in general and our page about eating alone takes the counter bars where one person is the standard customer. This page is about what the words on a Spanish menu mean, what each thing should cost, and where the older Spanish London still is.
What to expect on the bill
- Small plates
- Our September 2026 estimate: £7-£14 each, three to four per person for a meal
- Cured ham
- Priced by weight or by plate and the most variable item on any Spanish menu. Ask before ordering
- Sherry by the glass
- Cheaper than wine by the glass in most of these bars, and the point of visiting them
- Service charge
- Usually added at 12.5 per cent and discretionary. See our guide to tipping
- Kitchen hours
- London kitchens close far earlier than Spanish ones. Last orders are often 22:00
The ham is where the money goes
Nothing on a Spanish menu varies in price as much as the ham, and the labels are not decoration. They describe the breed of pig and what it ate.
| On the menu | What it is | Relative price |
|---|---|---|
| Jamón serrano | White-breed pig, air-dried, usually 12 to 18 months | The everyday one. Cheapest by a wide margin |
| Jamón ibérico | Black Iberian pig, grain and pasture fed | Two to three times serrano |
| Jamón ibérico de bellota | Iberian pig finished on acorns, cured three years or more | The expensive one. A small plate can cost as much as a main course |
| Lomo, chorizo, salchichón | Cured loin and sausages, not ham | Cheap, and a better way to fill a sharing plate |
A mixed charcuterie board is usually better value than a plate of the best ham, and the difference in pleasure is smaller than the difference in price. If you want to taste bellota once, order it alone with bread and nothing else, so you notice it.
Ask whether the ham is priced by the plate or by the gram. Some London bars sell cured ham by weight, which is normal in Spain and startling on a British bill. A hundred grams of the top grade is a serious sum. Say how much you want in money rather than in grams, and the counter will cut to it.
What else to order, and what is filler
Three dishes are worth ordering almost anywhere: tortilla española, a thick set omelette of potato and onion served at room temperature; pan con tomate, grilled bread rubbed with tomato and oil; and whatever the fish of the day is, because Spanish kitchens in London tend to buy well.
Padrón peppers, croquetas and patatas bravas are the three plates that appear on every menu and pad out every order. They are not bad, but four people ordering all three have spent a third of the bill on potato, flour and peppers. Pick one.
Paella is the dish most often done badly in London. A proper one is cooked to order in a wide flat pan, takes twenty minutes and comes with a toasted crust at the base. If it arrives in five minutes from a hot cabinet, it is rice with things in it. Our page on London's chain restaurants explains how to recognise a format that has been industrialised.
Sherry, in the four words that matter
Sherry is fortified wine from Andalusia, and the confusion in Britain comes from a century of sweet supermarket bottles. In a Spanish bar it is mostly bone dry and served cold in a small glass, and it is the best-value drink on the list.
- Fino and manzanilla: pale, dry, salty, served chilled. Drink with olives, almonds, ham or fried fish.
- Amontillado: darker, nuttier, still dry. Good with cheese and with anything roasted.
- Oloroso: full-bodied and dry despite the colour. The winter one.
- Pedro Ximénez, usually written PX: black, syrupy and genuinely sweet. Pour it over ice cream, which is what it is for.
Capote y Toros at 157 Old Brompton Road in South Kensington is the long-standing sherry-and-ham room, with a wall of bottles and a menu built around both. At King's Cross, the small sherry bar in Varnishers Yard trades alongside the Spanish restaurant on the same site and keeps the same kitchen. Our guide to wine bars in London covers the wider drinking-by-the-glass scene, and South Kensington explains what else is on that side of the museums.
Portobello Road's Spanish corner
The Spanish community that settled in North Kensington after the 1950s left a delicatessen behind it. R Garcia & Sons, at 248-250 Portobello Road, says on its own shop front that it was established in 1957, and it remains the place to assemble a Spanish picnic in London: whole chorizos, tinned Cantabrian anchovies, sheep's cheeses, turrón at Christmas, bocadillos made to order at the counter.
Buying here rather than sitting down is the single biggest saving available to anyone who likes this food. A loaf, 200 grams of cured meat, a piece of manchego and a tin of good anchovies is a better lunch than most £20 tapas orders, and our guide to picnic supplies and self-catering explains where to eat it. The shop sits at the northern, less photographed end of the market street; our page on Portobello Road Market has the trading days, which matter, and the Notting Hill eating guide owns the surrounding streets.
Exmouth Market and the Moorish end
Moro, on Exmouth Market in Clerkenwell, has been cooking the food of southern Spain and North Africa in the same room since 1997, which by London standards makes it an institution. It is the restaurant that taught the city that Spanish cooking does not stop at the Strait of Gibraltar: charcoal-grilled meat, flatbreads, preserved lemon, cumin and sherry in the same sentence. Expect a proper restaurant bill rather than a bar one, and book.
Its smaller sister operation runs the same idea as a counter, with one site on Hackney Road in Hackney. For the North African half of that cooking on its own terms, see our guide to Moroccan and North African food in London. Our Clerkenwell guide covers Exmouth Market's other trade, most of it Italian.
Where else the Spanish kitchens are
Brindisa began as an importer of Spanish produce and now runs tapas restaurants across the city, including Broadwick Street in Soho, Exhibition Road in South Kensington and Hildreth Street in Balham. All three currently hold a top hygiene rating, and the Soho and South Kensington rooms are useful because they sit exactly where visitors already are.
The counter-only tapas bars in Soho and Covent Garden take no reservations at all, and our list of restaurants that do not take bookings explains how their queues work. South of the river, the Spanish cluster around Bermondsey Street and the Maltby Street arches belongs to our London Bridge eating guide, and it is the best concentration of Spanish food in the city if you are already there.
Check the branch, not the brand. Several Spanish restaurant groups in London have one site rated 5 and another rated 2 by the same inspectors. The rating applies to the kitchen you are eating in, not the name over the door, and it is displayed in the window and searchable on the Food Standards Agency site. We do not name any address rated below 3.
Eating at Spanish hours in a British city
The single most common disappointment is timing. In Spain a tapas bar fills at 21:30 and dinner starts at 22:00; in London most kitchens stop serving food between 22:00 and 22:30, and many stop at 21:30 on a Sunday. If you want the late, loud version of this food, Friday and Saturday in Soho or Shoreditch are your best chance, and our page on late-night food in London lists what is still cooking after that.
Lunch is where the value is. A weekday set lunch at a Spanish restaurant often costs half of what the same kitchen charges at 20:00, which is the same pattern our guide to starred restaurants in London describes at the top end.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a tapas meal in London cost?
Our September 2026 estimate is £7 to £14 for each small plate, with three or four plates per person making a meal, so £30 to £45 a head with a drink at a good tapas bar. Cured ham of the top grade and a fish special will push it well above that. Buying from a Spanish delicatessen instead costs a fraction of it.
What is the difference between jamón serrano and jamón ibérico?
Serrano comes from white-breed pigs and is cured for roughly 12 to 18 months. Ibérico comes from the black Iberian pig and costs two to three times as much; the bellota grade is finished on acorns and cured for three years or more, and a small plate of it can cost as much as a main course.
Where can you drink proper sherry in London?
Specialist sherry bars exist in South Kensington and at King's Cross, and most serious Spanish restaurants now keep a short sherry list by the glass. Order fino or manzanilla chilled with salty food; they are dry, not sweet, and usually cheaper than wine by the glass.
Is Spanish food in London good for vegetarians?
Better than its reputation. Tortilla española, pan con tomate, padrón peppers, grilled aubergine, chickpeas with spinach and several cheese plates are standard. Watch for ham and anchovy used as seasoning in vegetable dishes, and for pork fat in some stews. Our guide to vegan and vegetarian London covers asking well.
Do you need to book a tapas bar in London?
The counter-only bars do not take bookings and run a queue instead, which moves faster than it looks because people eat two plates and leave. Larger tapas restaurants take bookings and need them from Thursday to Saturday. Arriving before 19:00 or after 21:00 is the reliable way in without a reservation.
Sources
- Food Standards Agency - food hygiene ratings search (checked September 2026)
- Food Standards Agency - establishment register, open data API (checked September 2026)
- Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - food labelling and information for consumers (checked September 2026)
- GOV.UK - tips at work and service charges (checked September 2026)