First things first, I would like to apologise for my absence from the blog, the summer has been a crazy one here at Tapas Revolution and between working in my two restaurants and experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen, I haven’t been able to spend time writing to update you all…

But all that is about to change, as I have one very big announcement to make… are you ready for it?  I have signed a book deal with Ebury Press to write my very first book on accessible Spanish cooking.  This is a dream come true for any chef, but in particular for me, as it will allow me to bring my passion for Spanish food into your lives and your kitchens!

In true Tapas Revolution style, I will be keeping things simple with easy to follow recipes and uncomplicated ingredients that I promise absolutely anyone can cook with. The book will be out next summer, and I’ll be hitting the road once again to bring the revolution to the people of the UK. So prepare to put down the spaghetti and lasagna and pick up the chorizo and tortilla instead – Tapas Revolution is coming!

And while I’m on the subject of big news, I recently won the Caterer & Hotelkeeper’s Acorn ‘Rising Star’ Award. It was such a shock… it’s always a huge honour to know that your work has been recognised.

I was told that previous winners of this award included great chefs Jason Atherton, Marcus Wareing and Michael Caines.

Exciting times are ahead, and I can’t wait to share my new amazing recipes for my book with you all.

Watch this space!

Omar

Food is my first love and a very close second comes football… and I mean very close. Sometimes I still dream about scoring the winning goal for my team, Real Madrid.

So you can imagine my excitement when my home country Spain got through to the final of Euro 2012. Honestly, I was like the energiser bunny jumping and screaming, but after (many) hours of trying to contain my excitement, I found the best was yet to come…

For the final between Spain and Italy, the legendary Italian Chef, Antonio Carluccio invited me to cook with him at his London home and cheer on our countries. A few called it a cook-off… Spain vs. Italy. However, unlike the football final, ours was just a friendly! We wanted to spend a great evening together watching football, cooking and sharing the wonderful food from our countries, and that’s exactly what we did.

Antonio is one of those chefs that everyone loves, his passion and love for cooking is so infectious. I’m sure there isn’t a person who can honestly say that after watching him in action didn’t want to rummage through their kitchen and cook something delicious.

I decided to make typical food that you would find amongst friends when watching a football match. So I served up Iberico ham and charcuterie, tortilla de patatas with chorizo, mussels in escabeche and a gazpacho.

Antonio prepared fantastic Italian platters of parma ham, spinach balls, melon soup, mozzarella wrapped in parma ham, soft pork scratchings and fried porcini in breadcrums, which was my favourite!

I already felt privileged to be invited to join him at his home but to personally eat dishes he cooked was truly an honour! Not wanting to sound (overly) star struck, his food was out of this world! What. A. Cook.

This evening was perfect… the combination of outstanding food, great company, and watching Spain win the final was just heaven!

I’ve been living in London now for six years and during my time here, I feel very lucky to have met some truly amazing people. It’s staggering the amount of professionals I’ve been able to share knowledge with and discuss our (very) different opinions on food, cooking, and restaurants… but there has been one man who introduced me to a world that I had little understanding of, and with his knowledge helped me shape a very important part of my business…

I first met Bruno Murciano during the semi-finals on Gordon Ramsay’s Best restaurant TV show. I was the Head Chef at El Pirata Detapas at the time, and the restaurant was selected to compete with Fino for the TV show.

I bumped into Bruno at Ramsay’s Royal Hospital Road restaurant and I recognised his face from various Spanish Food and Wine magazines but had never met him before. Our initial five minute introduction turned into a four hour conversation; I told him all about my plans, my vision to progress the Spanish food scene here in the UK, my planned trip around England cooking tapas for people I would meet along the way. I also told him about my idea to open Tapas Revolution. He loved the concept and shared the same vision as I did and even offered to help create an affordable but quality selection of wines for the menu.

By the way, I forgot to mention Bruno won Best Sommelier of Spain 2008, an accolade, which I hope describes the magnitude of his knowledge and skill. Bruno is a man who has as much passion about Spanish wines as I have for Spanish food. He has a holistic approach to wine, he is not only an expert on the taste but personally knows the workings of a vineyard and the people involved in producing the wine.

Being a chef, it’s a huge and important part of my job to source products that are of quality and taste great, and for me it’s essential to source from producers who respect their traditions, the product and the people involved in making it. So working with Bruno was truly a blessing…

However, my wine journey was no easy feat, as my requirement was very specific: a price range between £13 and £28 per bottle, all of which I planned to serve by the glass and carafe.

So we both decided to travel to Spain and visit as many vineyards and wineries in as many regions as possible. By the end of the trip we had a pretty good idea of what wines would be included on the menu.

Of course no menu can be finalised without tasting… we spent days pairing the wines with my tapas and painstakingly created the definitive list.

I feel so lucky to have met Bruno, firstly he’s an amazing individual and secondly, I feel that what I am trying to achieve has inspired others in such a way that they’re willing to make an effort for the cause, just like Bruno has. I have always believed the revolution isn’t a one-man venture, but a collective effort of many.

Viva la Revolucion!
Omar Allibhoy

Tapas Revolution Bluewater

It’s been a crazy few months for me and Tapas Revolution but we’ve finally opened our second restaurant, which means you can visit us at Westfield and Bluewater! It’s a great feeling to see an idea that I once scribbled in my notepad come to fruition.

We opened our doors to the lovely people of Kent a few weeks ago and the response to our little piece of Spain has been overwhelming. We have a brand new team and have also added a few new design elements to the bar such as leather booths and a Churros con Chocolate take-away counter. However, it still has a similar feel to that of Westfield and we’ve kept the traditional style of dining, where our customers can watch the chefs prepare their food in the open plan kitchen – I love the theatre of it all…

As well as the new Tapas Revolution opening, I have also been busy cooking live on Channel 4’s daytime food show, Drop Down Menu – for a few episodes. It’s been a great experience and have really loved cooking alongside some great chefs and being able to share my passion and style of cooking with a wide audience, which is what Spanish cooking is all about.

With everything being so busy with the Bluewater opening and filming, Christmas has crept up on me this year. I love Christmas, it’s a brilliant time for family, friends and of course, food. Food brings people together, which is what I love about this time of year the most.

I hope you all have the chance to enjoy the company with the ones you love the most.

It has been an amazing year for me and Tapas Revolution, so thank you very much for all your support, I can’t wait to continue the revolution next year!

But now, I’ve got to get my head down, as it’s time to cook for you all during this busy time of the year, buen provecho!

How do you fancy stirring up a Spanish fiesta at home using one of my favourite ingredients – Spanish Olives!

Not so long ago, I teamed up with Spanish beer giant, Estrella Damm for this year’s Taste of London. Following this great partnership, I’m excited to announce that over the next few months, I’ll be working with Olives from Spain on their latest campaign, to show all of you how easy it is to cook with this incredibly versatile ingredient!

A lot of people don’t know that Spain produces the majority of the world’s olives, over 40%. Whilst they’re largely eaten as a pre-dinner snack here in the UK, I’m on a mission to show you that olives are a great ingredient to use in a whole host of delicious dishes. Not only are they versatile, but they also taste great and are packed full of goodness.

I’ve always been frustrated with the fact that Italian and Indian food has such a high profile in the UK when Spanish food is just as easy to prepare, contains an array of exciting flavours and is also very good for you! That’s why I’ve created five delicious recipes, in conjunction with Olives from Spain, to show you just how easy Spanish cooking can be and how to incorporate Spanish Olives into your daily diet with amazing results.

Check back regularly to see what I’m up to and look out for me and Olives from Spain in the media – sharing recipes, facts and cooking tips on the wonderful Spanish olive!

A few weeks ago we teamed up with Spanish beer giant, Estrella Damm for this year’s Taste of London. I was really excited about the partnership because it was my first time at this event and I planned to make it memorable…

Dani, Omar and Kike

At the very start, the team at Estrella Damm and I decided that we wanted our tent to offer Taste of London guests complimentary food and drink. In fact, I later found out we were the only tent at Taste who did this.

The idea was to come up with a selection of tapas dishes that would be a perfect match with Estrella Damm. So I decided to make four Spanish pintxos: Chicory Endives with Valdeon cheese foam, Foie Gras Lollypop’s, Morcilla de Burgos snacks and Roasted Red Peppers with Anchovy.

The week leading up to the festival had been totally manic, as I just returned from filming in Madrid (which I will tell you more about in my next post). I was like the energiser bunny rushing about all over London, making sure I was as organised as possible – I wanted to leave nothing to chance!

With so much to do in such little time, the weather was the last thing on mind but when the day finally arrived… the weather was all I worried about. It was raining and there was no sign of any respite. I was wet, cold and my feet were muddy but I was determined to make this a special event.

To be honest, I was a little concerned that the rain would deter people from travelling to Regents Park, but thankfully my doubts were proven wrong! Floods of people (no pun intended) came to the event, it seemed not even the miserable weather could affect the turnout for Taste.

I had a great team behind me, my number one man and best friend Dani and the extremely talented head chef at El Pirata Detapas, Fabio.

We started at the crack of dawn and began setting up and preparing our tapas dishes for the day… by 12 pm we had our first group of visitors.

As planned I did some “Master classes” which turned out to be very interesting for the people as I brought different pre-prepared ingredients which they then put together afterwards. The most exciting was the Mussel in escabeche with a carrot and orange puree, samphire and mandarin caviar.

Over the four days we had more than 6,000 members of the eager public come to our tent to try our tapas!

Despite being as busy as we were, I still found some time to bump into a few of my food heroes like Pierre Koffman and Michel Roux jnr. By the way, Pierre loved my food and honestly I was touched.

I also managed to sneak off and visit a few stands and tried lots of dishes, my favourite by far was Club Gascon’s Foie Gras Burger, but to be honest I wouldn’t eat that more than once a year.

My first year at Taste was everything I imagined, busy and entertaining. I can’t wait for next year…. hopefully I will see you all there and  fingers crossed, next year it will be sunnier J.

Well here we are in Cowes! We have come so far on this journey, both emotionally and physically. But we have made it! Today we made bocadillos for the sailors coming back from racing, and it was a race for Dani and me to get them ready. Thanks to the members of the public and the RNLI for their help.

Here I am out on a boat about to deliver some bocadillos… there are much cooler photos… I will post them soon.

Now Dani and I are going to find a quiet place overlooking the harbour to cook ourselves one last supper just for ourselves, and reflect on an amazing trip.

Thanks to everyone we met (on the trip and online) for their support, and to the Spanish people, who have been totally amazing!

The Tapas Revolution continues…

Omar and Dani

It was great to meet all you guys in the layby at Junction 11 of the M3. And thanks Mike for taking some pictures. You were a very good cook.

The crew has left us for a couple of days to attend a friend’s wedding…. so Danny is using his camera to film!

We are off To Ocean Village in Southampton to cook for a load of people and tomorrow we are in Cowes. Get in touch by phone/email/Twitter if you’d like us to cook with you.

Our journey is nearing its end. We have so many great cooking stories to tell. I will post more as soon as I get a second.

Love from your amigos Omar and Dani

Saturday 31st July 12noon-4pm.
A3090, Hockley Link, (M3 Junction 11).

Fed up of service stations ripping you off with overpriced, rubbish food? Tapas Revolution to the rescue!

This Saturday we’ll be setting up in the Hockley Link layby just off Junction 11 of the M3 (which our Tapas T intersects). So if you’re in the area and feeling peckish, be sure to turn off and meet us for some free tasty tapas.

Or if you’re in London and at a loose end, why not come out and say hello. My TomTom says it’ll take you 1hr 35 minutes from Parliament Square.

Here are the coordinates for your TomTom:

Lat: 51.036529, Lon: -1.321390
Nearest Postcode: SO21 1PL (NB this is the postcode for a golfclub which just around the corner from where we actually are)
OSX: 447677, OSY: 126571

Visit the Tapas Revolution Map for a closer look.