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Waiters Tania Abreu, Jose Defreatas, Karla Figueira, Hernan Loccisano |
A Spanish affair to rekindle that holiday mood
Peter Gruner samples his favourite dish at El Molino, served up with memories of the Mediterranean
THE smells of cooking wafting from the kitchen are intoxicating. Close your eyes and you could be sitting in a tapas bar on holiday somewhere on the Costas.
Instead we are at El Molino on the Holloway Road, which has been a popular family Spanish restaurant and tapas bar for almost 30 years.
Customers like coming here to remind themselves of sunny holidays on the Mediterranean and to receive a warm welcome like no other.
It’s a real family affair for manager Jose Defreatas. His wife Ermelima is a waitress at the restaurant so they tend to see rather a lot of each other.
“I’m the boss in the restaurant,” Jose says, “but my wife is the boss at home. At home she tells me what to do – here I’m in charge.”
He laughs: “As long as we remember where we are and who is boss then it works fine.”
He also has his step-daughter Tania and niece Karla waiting at tables. Jose’s nephew Ernesto is the chef and his brother in law, Pedro, also comes in to work part-time.
My colleague and I ordered my favourite dish, paella (£22.95 minimum of two people). It’s a dish which comes with many happy memories of holidays for me and my wife when the children were small.
There was a seaside café in Nerja on the Costa del Sol and paella was cooked right in front of us on the beach.
Would El Molino’s paella live up to expectations? It did. My colleague and I both remarked about the delicacy of the flavour and the tenderness of the meat and fish. It’s a dish which requires the right balance of ingredients, including prawns, mussels and chicken.
Local Labour Islington councillors Wally and Janet Burgess from Tufnell Park are regulars at El Molino. They go for the tapas, small dishes which range from artichoke hearts in vinaigrette (£3.10) to octopus in olive oil and paprika (£6.55).
Wally says: “We usually go for prawns in garlic, bean and chorizo sausage stew, mushroom and spinach in cream, chicken in sauce, sardines, aubergines and Mediterranean vegetables. It’s all complemented by a fantastic bottle of Rioja.”
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