Tabanco By Ambiente — Restaurant in Great Britain

This was a fabulous meal.

£8.50 for a flight of three delicious, delicious sherries! Are you having a giraffe? That is outstanding value!

Also outstanding value is the £9.50 tapas wheel of ranchero and quince, jamon and anchovies on tomato garlic toast. That last was outstandingly good with the minerally fino sherry from the flight. Amazing.

The croquettes of blue cheese and spinach, with frizzy lettuce and pickled walnuts is another dish well worth trying. Delicate not at all over-bluey or too funky. Tasty and creamy. Amazing.

The potato and chorizo in a sweet sherry and red wine sauce spiked with fennel seeds was fabulously deep and sticky. Apparently a customer favourite. I can see why. It was great. The chorizo is somewhat spicy - but not outrageously.

To freshen up, we ordered the very good sharp cheese, mixed leaves and cucumber salad. Less than a fiver. A bargain for a substantial plate of delicious fresh greenery.

The grain salad was probably the best dish of the night. Freekeh (green sprouted wheat grains), pumpkin seeds, toasted corn kernels, a little minty hint I think. Chewy, crunchy, smoky, fresh. Served a little above room temperature so all the flavours came out. Outstandingly well balanced dish. Really. Amazing cooking.

The beef with polenta, pesto and a Spanish style barbecue sauce was the least successful dish. Mainly due to the meat having been cooked a bit too long on the plancha. Would be great with rare beef. All the bits around the meat were great and I still scoffed the lot!

For dessert we ordered the crème brûlée (not at all eggy, it was creamy, thick and just overall and excellent example of the kind) and the polenta and almond Spanish cake with raspberries and cream. The cake was superb. Tasted of the most delicious delicate semolina and almonds. With a dose of sherry nectar added it was glorious. Especially as we were added a Sherry Raisin vanilla ice cream to go with it.

To top it all off, as it was our wedding anniversary, we were given a present of a slice of the outstanding basque burnt cheesecake. Earlier that day, a couple from Extremadura had said that it was better than anything they could get in their town. High praise from those who should know. And it is amazing. Creamy, delicate, subtle, a little sweet, a good handful of sherry plumped raisins on the top. Wonderful.

An absolutely brilliant meal. For only a little over £40 a head. And if you drank less than me (the Rioja was excellent too!) you’d be only around the £30ish mark. Highly recommended. Third time I have eaten at this group of restaurants and they have been brilliant every time. Oh. And the staff?! Fabulous. So welcoming. Super professional in a friendly way.

Highly, highly...

We had such a wonderful last dinner in York here!

Lucie was amazing to talk to and really helped us navigate the menu.

We definitely ordered too much but I'm so glad we got to taste so many dishes (we had just eaten a big lunch about 3 hours before lol):

Wheel of tapas: BIG! So good. Really loved the tomato bread under the toppings, took me back to Spain. The anchovies were really nice and fresh (as were the other toppings). Lamb patties: solid, loved the rice they were sitting on a lot. Octopus - It was good but probably our least favorite dish - I prefer my octopus not sliced/chopped but in a big meaty piece with some char on it. This was slightly fishy. Iberico secreto: OMG SO GOOD just get it!!! Patatas bravas: I'm never a fan of these because I find they're always kinda bland, but husband likes them so we order them. I've probably had 50 versions of this dish, and these are by far the best version we've ever had. Every single component on the plate was well seasoned and super flavorful! I couldn't stop eating them! Monk fish cheeks - Soooooo good. Sweet, soft, and the piperade under it was so flavorful. I didn't know a pepper could have so much flavor!

Lastly, drink wise, we love the Complot IPA, the sherry flight was super fun, and the sangria was perfect - not too sweet for us ;).

I wouldn't hesitate to come back here on...

I should not have gone there on my own. The restaurant looked averagely busy (round 7pm-ish) and serving staff were very polite and kind. However, it took rather a long time for relatively simple dishes to come out of the kitchen (lack of staff or organisation?), and curiously the four items I got (out of 5, I'll come to that in a sec) were served/delivered by 4 different staff(!) So much so, that I did wonder whether there was effective communication between staff. For the sake of continuity it may be good to review how you coordinate orders and kitchen comms - just a thought. Then behind me came a group of 10 who immediately ordered drinks and - what else could you expect with 10 peops talking - I felt quite overwhelmed by the noise. The nibbles were OK but expensive, the two dishes were also OK but, sorry, nothing to write home about and not involving much cookery anyway (patatas bravas and some cold cuts / cheese). I feel that my review comes across as perhaps more negative than it should be but it seems to me that small improvements would make a great difference to your place which deserves the credit at this time. Funnily enough, I didn't get to see the dish I was looking forward to the most (king prawns) as I cancelled it (just took too long). The GREAT thing about the restaurant is the music!!! Please keep it as it is - it makes for such a...