Sant-Yago Tapas & Cocktail Restaurant, Southsea

Sant-Yago in Clarendon Road, Southsea, Portsmouth is a tapas & cocktail restaurant and another of those places which has been on my ‘must visit’ list, of which there are many. It was my birthday and although I’d already celebrated the evening before with friends at Annie-Jones in Petersfield (which also has a tapas bar as well as a restaurant) it would be a shame to leave out my husband Geoff, son Peter and his girl-friend Sophie.

Tapas bars are popping up all over the place and becoming very popular and a great place to go with a group of friends, especially if you like to share. In most cases, dishes are reasonably priced, with the cheapest being around £3.50 and the dearest only £7.

There was lots to choose from on the menu, something for everyone. Geoff and I visited Spain last year for the very first time and were delighted that each time we ordered a drink we would get free food. Although he knew he’d have to pay for the food on this occasion he thought he still had to order drinks with each dish. Crikey, we’d be paralytic if that were the case! We asked the waitress just to resolve this confusion.

We each ordered two dishes and if we were still hungry we could always order more. We were given tap water served in a nice bottle with a sprig of mint in and we ordered a bottle of white wine to share.

The bread came with a hummus dip, garlic mayo’ but the little pot of olive oil/balsamic vinegar was empty which was funny. Obviously a mistake but it didn’t matter as we were quite happy with just the hummus.

We all had a taste of each others choices but otherwise didn’t bother sharing as we all like different things. One of Geoff’s dishes was the smoked pork & beef meatballs, slow cooked in tomato & red wine sauce.

Sophie enjoyed her paprika chicken skewers, marinated in garlic, white wine & paprika, mixed peppers, onion and a pesto dressing. She also had some garlic bread with cheese.

Peter chose the chicken garlic & potato stew with onion in a creamy white wine sauce.

I love halloumi so these grilled halloumi skewers with onions and peppers and a balsamic glaze went down a treat.

Gosh, these are SO naughty but they were incredibly delicious.

Whenever we have tapas we almost always order this classic dish of potato & onion omelette which was served with a pesto & garlic mayo’ dip. Very nice indeed.

When it came to desserts we weren’t sure whether to have any or just order another tapas each. In the end we decided we would have a dessert and as it was my birthday and I was feeling unusually greedy (ahem) I chose all three. Not my fault really, the blame lies with the young waitress who told me that that weren’t terribly large portions and that she herself could quite easily eat all three even after a few tapas and she was just a wisp of a thing.

It’s all lies I tell you! No way could she have eaten all that and not felt terribly sick as I did 😉 I had to have the others help me out although they each had their own desserts. We found them to be a little disappointing to be honest. The Bailey’s cheesecake was very rich and creamy, you could taste the Bailey’s so no complaint there. It was in a glass with the biscuit crumbs in the bottom but just as crumbs and the cheesecake mixture piled on top. Even for me it was a little too much. Sophie had the same.

The chocolate dessert – forgive me, I can’t remember the correct name for two of the desserts – was a thick dense cream, hard to get the spoon into, it would have been better had it been a mousse or something a little lighter or softer, again this was a bit too rich for me and I love chocolate as most of you know. This was served with a little shortbread biscuit and a sliced strawberry. The crumble isn’t normally my first go-to and Geoff and Peter also had the same. This was served with vanilla ice-cream. They enjoyed it but we all agreed that we wished we had gone for another tapas each instead. Browsing their Facebook page they have some new desserts coming soon so hopefully they will be nicer.

Up by the bar there was a film projected onto the white wall behind it of old Laurel & Hardy films and you could watch the barmaids shaking cocktails. The staff were excellent in fact, very friendly, happy and helpful, lovely girls. We wouldn’t hesitate on returning, in fact only a week later Geoff and I decided to have lunch there but alas, they don’t open until 5pm 🙁 so we had to go elsewhere, luckily there are tons of places to go along that strip of road which leads into Osborne Road, including Southsea Coffee Co and newly opened Cheese & Cheers.

Ambience: 8
Value: 8
Service: 9
Quality: 8
Returnability: Yes!

Living life, loving tapas

A x