At 7.45pm on a Wednesday, every table in Bar San Juan on Chorlton’s Beech Road is taken. The tiny kitchen behind the bar is slammed, the order checks stretching the length of it, and flames licking up from the grill.
Spanish is the only language being spoken, and loudly, while the telly plays Spanish TV - there are some dancing ponies, the Spanish answer to QVC and the weather. It’s 39 degrees in Cordoba this weekend.
There’s nothing much to suggest you’re not in a neighbourhood bar in Seville. Even down to the square napkin dispensers on every table and the little paprika tins filled with small forks for your tapas.
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There are two spaces left at the shelf along the side wall, opposite the bar, so I grab them, beneath a picture of a hugely handsome bearded man from the 80s. The two gents who follow 60 seconds later are told it’ll be 40 minutes. Phew.
You didn’t used to be able to book at all here, but now there is a loose reservation situation in place. I’d recommend not risking it. Back when it opened, it was inside or nothing, but now they have a covered front and side terrace. How the kitchen copes with it is baffling.
So few places are packed like this on a Wednesday night these days. Maybe because there’s less money around, people are less willing to take the risk. People know this place is good.
For the past 13 years, it’s been serving up pretty much the exact same menu, save for a couple of daily specials. Today it is gazpacho andaluz at £3.80 a cup and pork fillet cooked in beer for just under £7.
A couple of weeks back, it was named the best reviewed restaurant in Manchester. Not voted for by hoity toity food types, but by its customers. Ask anyone local and they’ll agree with you, and it’s not wildly surprising either.
A bowl of the chilled gazpacho was garlicky and light. The last of the pork tenderloin in beer had just left the kitchen, sadly, so the morcilla was ordered instead (£6.90), served in crisp discs with a shard of roasted red pepper, a mint leaf and some sweet apple compote underneath. Sorry, bury black pudding, but this was something else.
Despite being as mobbed as I’ve seen any restaurant recently - more so, in fact - dishes arrived impressively rapidly. The cojunudo trufada (£6.90) was spreadable chorizo from Majorca on toasts, topped with a cute fried quail’s egg and drizzled with truffle oil. If you only order one dish, make it this.
Next a plate of manchego cheese, topped with membrillo (quince paste) and sultanas (£5.40), and a healthy bowl of crisp fried potatoes with heavily garlicked mayonnaise (£4.10). The carrilleras de ternera - slow-cooked beef cheek with crisped leeks (£7.90) - has been on the menu for at least a decade.
May it stay on there for another. It’s soft to the point of ridiculousness. You can eat it with a spoon, then drag some of the crispy fried potatoes through the gravy.
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If you only order one dish, make it this one. I know I’ve said this already, but I really mean it this time.
Finally, a dish of clams in salsa verde (£6.90), using the toast from the chorizo and quail’s eggs to soak up the wine and garlic liquor, was light and delicious, as was the Alhambra beer - which is served on tap, the only place I know to do it - that accompanied a faultless dinner.
Plenty of places ‘do tapas’, and even more places do small plates. Bar San Juan does it properly, not elevated or smartened up, but knocked out at rapid pace in a busy, hectic bar, as it should be. Here you can spend an hour or so in Spain for the cost of a few plates and a beer.
