Inside the morsel maze

The tapas bar looked so promising, so authentic. Through the open door it seemed like a bit of Old Seville preserved in aspic with walls covered in bullfight posters and sharp-horned, bulging-eyed bulls’ heads.

We needed to shelter, because the sky was starting to threaten us with one of Seville’s legendary downpours. It’s with good reason that “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain” – that phonetic exercise in My Fair Lady – actually translates as “La lluvia en Sevilla es una pura maravilla.” So until the shower passed we went inside to find a table and share a couple of small plates of tapas.

The bar wasn’t a tourist trap like many of those in the Centro Historico area, but deep in the heart of an old residential neighbourhood called La Macarena. The locals, it turned out, had taken refuge at the first spit of rain and were already engaged in a boisterous lunch.

The more modern type of tapas bars keep their dishes hot under lamps on the bar top, and it’s easy enough to point and order if you can identify little more than chorizo and patatas bravas. But deluding ourselves that we had at least attained an intermediate level of tapas menu mastery we gave it a go.

Sadly, our chances of communicating what we wanted turned out to be slim. In this old bar all the food was served fresh, straight from the kitchen, and the menu was chalked in an almost illegible scrawl on a venerable blackboard. When he finally came over the elderly waiter didn’t have time for our ridiculous attempts at Spanish, although to his credit he never once uttered a Manuel-like “Que?” He simply listened to us stoically for ten seconds, then turned and disappeared.

I was under the impression that I could expect portions of Albóndigas (meatballs) and Croquetas de Jamón (ham croquettes), but what arrived was a plate of serano ham and green olives smothered with viscous allioli, and a glistening wedge of tortilla omelette, both of which contained so much garlic I would not have been surprised to see the crowds part Red Sea-like when we returned to the street.

As things turned out this was a fairly typical experience on the tapas trail through Seville. The city claims to have given tapas bars to the world, and there are more found in this city per head of population than anywhere else in Spain. Most of them are in Seville’s utterly unfathomable maze of narrow streets, where menus and waiters make no concession to the English language and your order often gets lost in translation. The upside of this is that you get to discover dishes you would probably never have bothered to try.

The original tapas, it is said, were small portions of chicken served to a Spanish king to build up his strength after illness. He used the small plates to cover his wine and thus keep out the flies, and the Spanish verb tapa – meaning “to cover” – was adopted as the name for eating small portions of savoury Spanish dishes with drinks.

At first tapas were served free of charge as accompaniments to drinks, but these days they are usually the main event. The people of Seville are fond of their tapeo – the tradition of moving from bar to bar to try each one’s house speciality. They rarely eat a single tapa but share several, a practice known as ración. The food is usually accompanied by a glass of fino wine, and only the elderly, infirm and tourists have their tapas sitting down. A few perch on bar stools, but everyone else stands up.

The world’s first tapas bar was in Seville, and it was hard to resist checking it out. El Rinconcillo in the La Macarena area has been going since 1670, and despite its history it was not wall-to-wall with tourists but reassuringly crammed with local families. The walls were covered in Moorish tiles, great clusters of cured hams dangled from the rafters and the marble-topped tables looked like they’d seen at least a century of use.

Like everywhere in Seville, the black-waistcoated waiters had plenty of attitude and were just as likely to bring their own choice as they were anything you thought you’d ordered.

Here at least we got two dishes right. First was the gambas la plancha, blushing prawns tossed around on a hotplate and served with a squirt of salsa verde (more garlic hyperkill). Second was queso manchego con carne de membrillo, the famous ivory-yellow ewesmilk cheese from the La Mancha region served with a slice of quince jelly, which is as delicious a pairing as Yorkshire’s own Wensleydale and fruitcake.

One of the classic tapas dishes of Andalucia is cola de toro, otherwise known as oxtail stew. There are several ways of cooking it, the most common being pot-roasted in fino with black pepper or slow-cooked with tomato, red wine and herbs. This one, at least, we managed to order without difficulty, and once eaten it was hard to resist trying it in every other bar. Forget those miserable tins of oxtail soup you’ve had back home. This could be the most delicious plate of meat you’ve ever eaten.

Another is Espinacas con Garbanzos, or spinach and chick peas garnished with fried quails’ eggs. And everywhere we went there was a leg of Ibirico ham on the bar, from which shavings were carved and served in a manner which would have made our British elfin safety inspectors hand out closure notices.

Recommendations besides the one and only El Rinconcillo? Well, for great food, great atmosphere and stunning prices search out La Sacristia, Las Teresas and – our favourite – the tiny Casa Placido, all of which are near the cathedral.

You may not always get what you thought you’d ordered, but you’ll probably want more.

GETTING THERE

* Roger Ratcliffe flew to Seville with Ryanair from Liverpool John Lennon. Prices from £29.99 one way. Visit www.ryanair.com

* Seville accommodation and attractions www.aboutsevilla.com

* El Rinconcillo is at 42 Calle Gerona.

* La Sacristia is at 18 Calle Mateos Gago.

* Las Teresas is at 2 Calle Santa Teresa.

* Casa Placido is at 5 Calle Mesón del Moro.