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Cava Spanish Restaurant & Tapas Bar

Even though Cava, Galway’s new Spanish restaurant, a stones throw from the main shopping/restaurant area around Shop Street and Quay Street, was only open a short time at the time of the Guide’s visit, it already had all the appearance of a confident, well-run business.

Owner-operated by chef J P McMahon and his partner, Drigin Caffey, who supervises service, the ambience is authentically Spanish. Not a bull or toreador poster to be seen but the menu in the Spanish language, with English sub-titles, and an all-Spanish wine list (wines from Mad About Wine in Moycullen) leave one in no doubt about what’s on offer.

The tapas menu is available all day and there’s a separate lunch and dinner menu, both à la carte. The tapas menu takes one on a 24-dish tour of Spanish cuisine in miniature, from shellfish soup with sherry to squid with garlic and parsley, salted cod cakes, sweet peppers with goats cheese, braised tongue and kidneys in various guises.

Dinner menu items of more substance include starters of Spanish cheeses and cured meats, warm duck salad with pears and raspberry vinaigrette and mains like Moorish couscous and braised fennel with potato omelette and lemon mayonnaise. The cooking is innovative, displaying knowledge and expertise that raise it above the average Galway dining experience.

Desserts are simple, and again very Spanish: deep-fried churros with chocolate ice cream, for example, and a Spanish crème brulée.

The wine list covers the Spanish spectrum, brief but well chosen: Cava, naturally, featuring strongly by the glass for €6, rising to an expensive, aged Cava Mestres mas Via @ €120. And soft drinks get more than a cursory look in too, with elderflower bubbly, several fruit lemonades and lime crush, all at €4.

The atmosphere is casual and bright: some exposed stone, high ceilings, aquamarine and caramel coloured walls, wooden floors and tables.

And it is noisy - background music may well be impossible to decipher against the clamour of a full house of happy diners.

Seats 50; reservations recommended; children welcome; toilets wheelchair accessible; air conditioning. Open daily 12-10.30pm (to 11.30 Thurs, 12.30 Fri/Sat, 10 Sun); a la carte menus; house wine from €18. SC 10% on groups 6+. Live Flamenco Fri nights. Closed 25 Dec. Mastercard, Visa, Laser.

Directions:

Lef Bank Galway city centre