Taste of Spain at Socarrat

Guest Post by Mari Abe, Downtown Correspondent

There are a million places to eat in Manhattan, but as a general rule, any restaurants that my sister (operations manager for Townhouse Restaurant Group) and her boyfriend (general manager at La Fonda Del Sol) recommend, go right to the top of my list. Socarrat Paella Bar was one such place.

Located on a discrete block in Chelsea, it’s small and narrow and has one long communal table with bar stools on each side. Knowing how popular this place is (less than 30 seats and they don’t take reservations), we got there around 6:30 on Saturday and there was already a 20 minute wait. The host instructed us to pick out our paella before we got seated because it takes a long time to prepare. The menu had a variety of meat, seafood and combination paellas which made it hard to decide, but we went with the seafood paella.

Once we were seated, we picked out a few tapas to start. Only problem was, our paella came out as soon as we’d placed our tapas orders. Very disappointing. While I appreciate their effort in trying to reduce our wait time, it was clearly a ploy to turn as many seats as possible in one night. I was a bit annoyed but as soon as I had my first bite of the paella, I was ready to forgive. The rice was perfectly cooked (not too hard, not too soft), full of flavor, and topped with fresh mussels, cockle clams, shrimp, squid and scallops.

The tapas arrived shortly thereafter – beet salad tossed in a vinaigrettedressing with manchego cheese, fried artichokes with lemon, and finally the pork belly. The first two were pretty basic, so let me spend some time on the latter. It was cooked perfectly and not overwhelmingly fatty as pork belly sometimes can be. Served with a slice of roasted potato, a date puree and topped with a slice of granny smith apple, it was the perfect bite of sweet and savory. Towards the end of the meal, the waitress came back to scrape the socarrat, the rice stuck to the bottom and sides of the shallow, iron pan the paella is cooked and served in.

Despite the paella timing snafu, I was very pleased with Socarrat. The bar was roomier than I had expected (no rubbing elbows with neighbors), and the decor of the restaurant is quite charming – tile floors, paintings and mirrors on a brick wall on one side, off-white cabinets on the other, and wood ceilings all in a well air-conditioned and warmly-lit space with doors that open out onto the street. It’s an intimate restaurant where you go to share food and engage in conversation with a good friend or someone special. I can’t wait to go back to try a few more of the paellas on the menu.