In most of the United States, if all you knew about Spain came from the Spanish restaurants in your town, you’d be laboring under the impression that everyone in Spain listens exclusively to folk music, uses too much paprika and hasn’t yet reached the Iron Age, preferring to cook exclusively in terra cotta crocks. These are places to which you go out for tapas, apparently the staple food of Spaniards. Unlike many such national minstrel shows (the red-sauce Italian, moo-shu Chinese or plate-breaking Greek), these notions are based in a reality that continues to exist; however, they should never have come to represent a nation of millions.

In New York City, there is one kind of restaurant that is sorely lacking; one that is the bedrock of Spanish food culture. It’s a small, casual bar that just happens to serve better food than it needs to, a place where eating is not the point of your evening, it’s just an ever-present element thereof. You go out to meet friends, to talk, to hang out; you have some cheese, a plate of anchovies, a little bread to keep you going. Arguing about who makes the best pan con tomate and whether to get the squid or the chorizo may be most of the conversation, but you’ll never sit in front of a massive plate, taking photos and eating in silence until the next course comes. It’s aspirational living at its best, being incredibly exacting about food while treating it with the nonchalance it deserves.

This is what you get at Bar Jamón (125 E. 17th St., casamononyc.com), the round-the-corner companion to Mario Batali’s longstanding Casa Mono. The narrow, dark-wood-lined space is unforgivingly small, the room dominated by a winding, high-topped table and a narrow marble bar at the entry that also serves as wine display and prep space. Enormous mirrors cover the walls at both ends of the room, one marked in white with the menu, the other reflecting diners’ flushed, laughing faces back to them in the shimmer of candlelight.

It is a perfectly romantic location to put your date through a surreptitious battery of tests: Are they adventurous, or will they blanch when told that the “pulpo” in pulpo with spicy garbanzos is octopus (though you might let them—more for the rest of us!)? Can they appreciate a dish almost ludicrous in its simplicity like that pan con tomate, two slices of toasted bread smeared with olive oil and tomato pulp and a judicious scattering of chunky salt? It’s the best in the city precisely because of that simplicity, relying on the quality of the sharply green oil and obscenely red tomatoes rather than chef-y theatrics to dazzle.

Should your date fail the tests, there’s plenty to drown your sorrows in a wine list that is second to none for highlighting the varietals that are routinely overshadowed by dark red malbecs and tempranillos on most round-the-world wine lists. For a lighter way to spend your night, one of the Basque txakolis is the only way to go. What is otherwise an exceptionally well-balanced, mid-weight white is made sublime by its presentation: poured in a thin stream into a small carafe from as high as your waiter’s wingspan can manage, the aeration lending a slight effervescence that lurks without overpowering the palate. Like sparkling wines it pairs perfectly with rich, fatty foods like cheeses and the eponymous jamón, but as a heavier white it works just as well with brighter, more acidic foods like olives and stuffed piquillo peppers.

Whatever you do, don’t order all at once. Get one plate at a time, linger over your (generously sized) glass of wine, people-watch, have a real conversation with your companion. In other words, get Spanish.

By Tom Steele

Before I visited Spain for the first time, my friends warned me that I’d be disappointed by the cuisine there. On the contrary, I was not only completely beguiled, but the trip changed the way I cooked in several important ways. For example, as soon as I returned to New York, the first thing I did was get myself a good Spanish paella pan. Ever since, paella has almost always been my go-to dish for company—it’s so incredibly versatile, and you don’t have to spend hours in the kitchen; after a certain point, it just cooks itself.

El Porron offers a romantic, relaxed dining area.

Oddly, especially given how sensible, relatively economical and mostly salubrious the cuisine is, it’s surprising that there aren’t dozens upon dozens of good Spanish restaurants in Manhattan. But what we have is mostly very good. My favorite downtown Spaniards are Las Ramblas and the indefatigable El Faro (b. 1927); my favorite uptown is now El Porron.

The restaurant was named for an eccentric glass-drinking pitcher with a long spout that pours the wine directly into your mouth (well, with a little practice). It was opened one year ago by executive chef Gonzalo “Mr. G” Bermeo, his brother Mario, and his son, Diego, who also serves as a most charming and focused front-of-house director.

The jaunty restaurant sports a spacious bar area, agreeable even lighting, partially clothed high dark wood tables, glowing brick walls and currently a large sign saluting the restaurant’s first birthday, with “Happy Anniversary, El Porron” written entirely with rows of wine corks.

A pitcher of sangria—made with the traditional red, white or sparkling wines—is the way to begin. The red mixture is unusually bracing and just fruity enough to buoy the rioja and keep your interest to the last drop.

There are hot and cold tapas galore. From the cold roster, we sampled satiny slender slices of Serrano ham (only recently allowed to be sold or served in the United States), with flavors that really undulate on the palate. Toasted garlic bread and a juicy fresh tomato are along for the ride, but I was happy to devour just that incomparable ham.

If I had to pick one favorite cheese, it would probably be Manchego cheese, a sheep’s cheese that is absolutely ubiquitous in Spain, and is really coming into its own here, as well it should. El Porron offers the cheese with a nice raisin-pecan bread and honeyed quince paste.

Having been marinated in sherry vinegar, white anchovy fillets—none better—are draped across toasted slices of artisanal bread. Alongside, an endive spear is filled with a lush pico de gallo.

From among the hot tapas, octopus is lightly boiled and dribbled with Spanish olive oil, red wine vinegar and Spanish (smoked) Pimenton paprika, one of Spain’s most significant contributions to world cuisine. After my sojourn to Spain, I’ve never used Hungarian paprika again.

Fresh tiger shrimp are gently sautéed in garlicky olive oil, then sauced with a thoughtful Galician Albariño white wine sauce, and served in a ruddy ceramic cazuela. Go ahead and eat the still-attached brittle tail shell, as they do in Spain. It practically doubles the shrimp flavor.

On to the entrées (though many a Spaniard makes an entire evening meal from tapas): Tender veal scallops are watchfully sautéed with shiitake mushrooms, and the pan is deglazed with Oloroso sherry. The veal is plated with a spear of fresh rosemary, veal’s best friend.

Paella is proudly made “from scratch,” and takes 30-40 minutes, but if you order it when you order your tapas, everything will work out just right. Paella Marinera is the generous seafood route, and it’s extremely flavorful. The clams, mussels, squid, bay scallops and chunks of monkfish are brought together beautifully in the mound of short-grained rice stewed with red bell peppers and green peas.

We had just enough room for an evenly toasted egg flan, served in a volcano shape with coffee syrup dribbling out of the crater, all finished with slices of piquant and refreshing kiwi.

With dishes by turns authentic and creative served in a romantic and relaxing dining room, it’s certainly no wonder that El Porron has attracted a steady and devoted following—and not just denizens from the neighborhood. Clearly, people are coming to El Porron from all over the city.
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El Porron
1123 1st Ave. (at 61st Street)
212-207-8349
Entrées: $18-$30