Address: Elliott Stables, Elliott Street
Phone: (09) 365 1111
Website: elliottstables.co.nz/el-faro
Some cities in our part of the globe do an excellent line in old building rehabilitation. Think Melbourne, Hobart (I recently found out) and even Wellington. Auckland's record is abysmal.
So Elliott Stables should stand as a salutary lesson to Auckland property developers, illustrating what can be done with old city buildings and warehouses apart from the demolition option.
The stables are home to French creperie Torchon, Frankie's Wurstbude (sausage shop) and a number of specialist food shops. And El Faro, although why you would name a bar after a lighthouse in the middle of the city escapes me.
Inside the tiny, rather dark area (lighthouse in name only, then), there is seating for eight along one wall, further seating upstairs, which was unavailable the night we visited, and two more tables in the passageway outside. In fact, the kitchen looks as if it is roomier than the bar.
The menu is brief, as is the wine list, but offers enough to keep four diners happy.
Bill had trouble deciding which of the mussel pots to choose. He eventually settled on Binibeca, a wise choice according to the man seated just along from us. He comes to El Faro once a week, he said, for this very dish. With lemon zest, chilli, capers and the ubiquitous parsely (sic), the mussels were excellent, plentiful, tender and tasty.
Ken needed more than tapas, he said, so went for the beef Alboraya. Now, I have always found the idea of cooking beef with lemon bizarre, but upon trying it twice, I've found it works. So it was with Ken's - each of the flavours of saffron, anchovies, lemon, olives, thyme and sherry was distinct and pleasurable, and the beef was fall-apart tender. The chips and a bowl of what appeared to be bagged lettuce leaves were incongruous and unnecessary.
Jill and I, of more moderate appetite, selected four tapas from the 10 or so on offer. Butter beans with chorizo were firm and spicy and the mushrooms in Jerez sherry held their shape but were tender and delicate, with enough sherry flavour to enhance the earthiness of the mushrooms.
The fried chicken wings in beer and lime were more prosaic, and patatas with aioli were nothing more than potato chips with aioli. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but a bit ordinary. I missed the option of patatas bravas, usually such a staple of tapas menus.
Everything that goes near a frying pan at El Faro is cooked in rice bran oil, the mussel man informed us. Healthy, then. And there seemed to be no salt in any of the meals, nor any dispensers on the tables. Mind you, with anchovies, garlic, chilli and "parsely" in pretty much everything, we managed saltlessness quite comfortably.
The service was haphazard, with the bread and dips arriving with everything else. "Everything else" amounted to quite a lot, so the huge candle-holders had to be shifted to a nearby table, thus plunging us further into the gloom.
But El Faro is worth a visit - the food is genuinely Spanish, as I understand it, and the sangria definitely worth a try.
Rating out of 10
Food: 7
Service: 6
Value: 7
Ambience: 7
Our meal: $204 for four tapas, two mains, side salad, bread and dips, wine and beer.
Wine list: Brief to the point of curtness in the wine department, better on the sherries, as you'd expect and an adequate beer selection.
Verdict: A quick cafe and bar close to the city's entertainment centres. Good tapas, great sangria, surroundings in the type of area that needs to be encouraged.
