Travel: Tapeo Tapas Tour Around Seville

Tapeo: Tapas crawl around Seville

World Tapas Day - the third Thursday in June, seems the right time to write about our tapeo around Seville late last year.

What is a tapeo? Well, think of it as being like a long lunch or dinner but spread over a number of restaurants, where you stop for a snack and drink in say, half a dozen places!

We were actually staying in the city of Córdoba so visited Seville for a day trip only - the fastest AVE trains between the two cities take 43 minutes (€24.30 return) however for a slightly slower 45 mins AVANT train you can get a return fare for €16.65. Occasionally promo fares are available on AVE trains too. Note that the main Santa Justa train station is around a 30 min walk from the historic centre so as we were pressed for time we took a bus to meet with our guide Peter.

Peter at Seville Concierge had been recommended to us as a city guide by Shawn Hennessey who runs azahar-sevilla.com, whom we'd met the year before, but neither Shawn or Peter are native Spaniards, rather they've fallen in love with the country so made it their home. Peter is from London originally but has been living in Seville for 12 years so knows a thing or two about where to eat and drink!

Bar Europa

We began our tapeo tour at Bar Europa (Calle Siete Revueltas 35) with its classic white walls and tiled interior. This was a liquid refreshment stop only (read: beer!) and why not when you have a font which looks like this?!

And here's the menu should you want to nibble (click for bigger).

From there we meandered through the colourful and often narrow alleys passing by these roman ruins on the way (Columnas Calle Mármol).

Las Teresas

Our second stop was at Las Teresas (Calle Sta. Teresa 2). It didn't seem all that exciting from outside but never judge a book by its cover.

Inside it looked exactly like what we were hoping for - old and authentic with a huge supply of jamón hanging from the ceiling above. How's that for postcard perfect ambiance too?

We just knew this would taste good. Note the little cones underneath for collecting dripping fat deposits!

We worked out way through a few dishes, starting with boquerones al vinagre. Washed down with some lovely local wine.

And of course we couldn't leave without some of the ham and some cheese too.

Menus are below (click for bigger):

Casa Román

Casa Román (Plaza Venerables 1) was bar number 3.

We ate grilled mushrooms filled with juicy jamón in a salsa verde sauce. Absolutely delicious and unlike most mushroom dishes we've had before.

We had some two different types of cooked Iberico with chips, one with oil/gravy and one without.

To walk off the hefty portions of meat we passed through a historic courtyard filled with orange trees. There's a story here but that's one for your own tour through Seville!

Casa Morales

Onto our next stop - Casa Morales (Calle Garcia de Vinuesa 11).

The Immediate thing to stand out about Casa Morales is the giant wine vats against the wall. As wine seemed to be the tipple of choice we had a glass of vermouth with our tapas.

There's quite a selection of food on view but all of the items we ate here involved bread.

Firstly, our introduction to Pringa, one of the local specialities, this was like a grilled/toasted sandwich filled with a meaty sort of spicy pulled pork, followed by toast topped with ham and fat (but oh so delicious fat!) and then...

This! If you didn't know any better you'd probably falsely assume that these are fried eggs on toast but in fact it couldn't be much different! It's actually salted cod with a dollop of salmorejo - which is a local dish, basically a thicker, tastier gazpacho!

As we headed to our final destination we passed the huge cathedral which dominates central Seville. Here's close-up of one of the large Moorish doors at the entrance.

Las Azotea Santa Cruz

Our last stop of the day was at Las Azotea Santa Cruz (Calle Mateos Gago 8) the most modern, dare we say, trendy-looking of all the places we visited. It has two sister restaurants in Seville too.

This crispy deep-fried filo filled with prawn, cheese and leek was an amazing combination - why don't we find items like this in tapas restaurants in Glasgow?!

We followed this with plump figs and melted goats cheese.

And then last but not least - dessert! This is a chocolate coulante - like a chocolate volcano filled with gooey chocolate lava served alongside an orange sauce and vanilla ice-cream (note the dots of real vanilla).

Menus (click for bigger):

And that concluded our food tour of Seville!

Thinking of visiting Seville soon? If so we'd recommend a tapeo tour to find the very best tapas in the city. Peter at Seville Concierge can tailor a trip to suit your needs and budget. It was an ideal way to find out about a city which was new to us and a definite foodie retreat. Our tour included not only where to eat and drink but also a background to the historic city of Seville.