Pizarro

Modern Spanish cuisine in Bermondsey

Pizarro by Jose Pizarro at Bermondsey is a Spanish restaurant serving simple modern Spanish food but with more of a non traditional approach. Instead of the classic tapas format, guests have the choice to order a starter, a main and a dessert like in a traditional English or French restaurant. Pizarro recently allowed dinner reservations and that was the major factor as to why I decided to visit the place, as I am not a big fan of none booking restaurants.

Pizarro

bread and olive

The decor was pretty simple with an open kitchen, like most top Spanish restaurants in London, we were given some bread and olive while we browsed through the menu. Spanish Chorizo was as good as you get in London, a perfect balance of meat and fat with lovely spicy undertones. Prawns, papada, girolles were just as good, lovely girolles dressing with fresh and juicy prawns, however with a price tag of £9 for only three average sizes prawns I found it a little bit too expensive.

chorizo

prawns, papada, girolles

Pochas, jamon, clams. A Spanish classic which was done expertly, all the flavours from the jamon and clams linked up wonderfully with the soft pochas. Octopus, potatoes, Pimenton de La Vers was the best dish of the evening. The octopus had a texture of a great steak, really tender and tasted wonderful with the potatoes and the paprika spices. The glazed beef cheeks with sweet potato puree was moist and had a really powerful and rich flavour which was well contrasted with the mellow sweet potato puree.

pochas, jamon, clams

octopus, potatoes, Pimenton de La Vers

glazed beef cheeks with sweet potato puree

For desserts, we had the chocolate truffles, raspberry sorbet and coconut soup, tangerine sorbet. I wasn't too impressed with either, the chocolate sauces were far too thick, sweet and overpowered the raspberry. While the coconut soup was at a fairly standard level, not what I would expect from this restaurant.

coconut soup

chocolate truffles, raspberry sorbet

To sum it up, the overall quality of Pizarro was of a pretty good level. Whilst in my view, it wasn't as good as places like Barrafina and Cambio de Tercio, Pizarro definitely outshone most of other Spanish restaurants around London. But the other issues were the price which I found just a little more expensive for the starters considering how tiny they were. Service could also be a little better as we felt we were rushed to finish our dinner with food arriving on our table at a pretty fast pace, not sure if I will return any time soon.

Food 6
Service 3
Ambience 5
Value 5

£34 per head with a glass of wine

194 Bermondsey St, London Borough of Southwark, London SE1

http://www.josepizarro.com/