Millie Short

Time Out

24-04-2025

Sometimes a menu item leaps up at you in the same way that a slobbering puppy might lick your mouth seconds after you've been introduced. At Tasca, that item is the jambon beurre gilda. The mere suggestion of the queen of pintxos in a daring tryst with the prince of sandwiches had me in raptures. Be still my beating epiglottis.
Was the dish as good as it was in my head? Better. A silver toothpick of nubbly, caperberry-brined pickle nestling against a sharp guindilla pepper and a dollop of espelette butter wrapped in ham, it was melty and meaty, and tangy all at once. Like a vintage John Waters movie, it's a bit much, but that's the whole point.
Who would be so bold as to conjure up this outrageous offering? That would be head chef Josh Dallaway, once of Sager + Wilde, working alongside former Bistro Freddie manager and sommelier, Sinead Murdoc. After munching their way around Portugal and Spain, the couple came back to east London with bellies full of tapas and heads full of ideas. In a year-long residency at Cav – a newly-opened wine bar in the railway arches of Paradise Row – Tasca hits all the 2025 buzz points; there's bold Basque cookery, an embarrassment of ferments, and a cocktail menu that features a couture martini fit for the racks at Dover Street Market (theirs comes with dill and anchovy oil).
Like a vintage John Waters movie, it's a bit much, but that's the whole point
Yet there's something about the playful Tasca that makes it more appealing than other Iberian small-plate pretenders. A slice of baguette slaked with intoxicating brown crab butter and topped with thick, beefy flaps of cecina cured with 10 kinds of peppercorn offers the perfect cream-to-crunch ratio. There's a scarlet prawn and pork cachorrinho, a febrile, salty take on the classic Porto 'hot dog' – that's essentially an elite toastie dribbling with nutty Ossau-Iraty cheese and served with a bottle of luminous hot sauce. There's a platter of girthy white asparagus too, smothered in a six year-old burnt almond miso that's funkier than a Larry Graham slap bass riff. And a moment please for the cleansing pleasure that is a mound of fresh goat's curd served with cucumber, drifting in a meditative pool of celeriac honey.
To the end, Tasca is the best kind of bad influence. They could have played it safe by popping out a couple of pastel de nata, but instead, there is a literal pudding toastie; a hot bikini sandwich filled with tomme de chevre cheese and smoked maple ham. It is, basically, an American diner sweet/savoury breakfast in gloopy, handheld form. Our only wish now is for this residency to become permanent – a mere year of Tasca simply doesn't seem long enough.