Ibiza Tapas & Wine Bar Opens Grandly In Hamden

The Vision

If you were designing a restaurant, what would you want it to be? It’s no accident that restaurateur Ignacio Blanco’s vision of the ideal restaurant is inseparable from mine. The restaurant would have to offer exceptional food—that’s a given. And in the case of Spanish food, the cuisine which many culinary experts feel has usurped France’s place in offering the world’s top food, it would have to show reverence toward traditional dishes as well as the culinary ability to dazzle with elements of the modern. Not surprisingly, the Spanish enjoy a closer relationship to their food sources than most Americans do.

But the restaurant would have to be reasonably priced, so that you could afford to come often, not just on special occasions. The restaurant would have to be organized in such a way that you could try a lot of different dishes—and therein lies the brilliance of the Spanish tapas concept.

Tapas are small, intensely flavored treats that originally were designed to rest atop a glass so that a person standing and talking could manage both his or her food and drink. And the restaurant would have to showcase a diverse enough menu so that you could never tire of the selection.

The restaurant would have to be almost as encouraging of drink exploration as it is of food. It would have to feature a broad selection of offerings. Mojitos, caipirinhas and sangría would be nice. Most important, it would have to serve drinks—especially wine—at manageable prices. In Spain, you can often find a decent glass of wine for just a couple of Euros. If you look at American prices, it’s not hard to see why we became a nation of beer-drinkers. While American restaurateurs depend more upon drink profits than their Spanish counterparts to help balance out their costs, many carry it to excess, charging more for a single glass of wine than they paid for the bottle.

No man in Connecticut is better equipped than Blanco to carry forward the cuisine of Spain, or arguably, to offer exceptional food and wine at reasonable prices. The peripatetic Blanco returns to his homeland frequently, visiting innumerable traditional and cutting-edge restaurants.  

Blanco’s other remaining eatery, Ibiza Restaurant in New Haven, scored a 28 out of 30 and is listed as having the second best food in Connecticut in the 2009-10 edition of the Zagat Survey that just came out.

What dining establishment apparently edged Ibiza Restaurant by fractions of a point? Perennial French favorite Thomas Henkelmann of Greenwich, keeping alive the Franco-Spanish debate locally. What three restaurants followed Ibiza Restaurant, rounding out Connecticut’s top five? Frenchies Le Petit Café of Branford, Cavey’s of Manchester and Jean-Louis of Greenwich.

Only a close friend or careful follower of Blanco would know all of the restaurants upon which he has put his imprint. Blanco recently sold Ibiza Restaurant sibling Meigas in Norwalk so he could pursue other ventures. Meigas had earlier been named Mesón Galicia, just as Ibiza Restaurant had been named Pika Tapas, but Blanco updated the restaurants’ names to indicate that he was pursuing contemporary Spanish food of the highest level. He briefly opened an Ibiza Restaurant in White Plains, New York last year, which was received with great enthusiasm before a problem arose with its lease.

Blanco was also involved in the opening of casual Soho Pizza in Danbury, a popular venue for New York-style pies and Spanish-influenced panini sandwiches that continues to thrive in the hands of Alvaro do Nascimento, who also owns the adjacent Double Twister ice cream shop. For years, Blanco owned Mediterranean Grill in Wilton, serving Spanish food to a happy crowd, some of whom mistakenly surmised they were eating especially good Italian food. Perhaps Blanco’s crowning glory was his original Meigas in lower Manhattan, a restaurant that was widely acclaimed by all of the major New York City publications before it became a casualty of 9/11.

So how has the eminently capable Blanco implemented this ideal vision? He never lost his passion for tapas, believing them the best affordable way to present a variety of high-quality items to food lovers. At newly opened Ibiza Tapas & Wine Bar in Hamden, the tapas are categorized as traditional and modern on the menu, and further subcategorized as cold and hot. These are terms of art, of course. “Cold” could include items served room temperature but never cooked, just as “hot” could include a dish best served warm rather than scalding. There is also a section of larger tapas called “raciones.” No item exceeds $9.75, and some are as cheap as $4.00.

Blanco’s projection is that a normal appetite should fill up on three tapas, possibly four, depending on what’s ordered. Most tapas are meant to be shared (it’s difficult to share a martini glass of gazpacho), so a typical table of four might divvy up 12 to 16 tapas, which means a great deal of experimentation and fun. The menu includes roughly 45 tapas large and small, but Blanco has in reserve perhaps another 100 planned tapas, ensuring seemingly infinite variety. For instance, he has other types of gazpachos, meaning he could rotate other gazpachos in and out of the lineup, or even create a tapa of gazpacho tastings.

Paralleling the affordability of his food, Blanco’s drink prices are no higher than those found at the many chain restaurants up the street, and in some cases are actually less expensive. Most appealing, he will be offering at least 30 bottles of wine for $30 or less, and some vintages will be much cheaper than that. The majority of the wines will be Iberian with a few produced in the Americas.

Ibiza Tapas & Wine Bar won’t accept reservations. At the prices Blanco’s charging, he can’t afford to hold onto a table for someone who may or may not show, a common dilemma in the restaurant business. He also can’t afford to have customers hang onto a table for the entire evening soaking up ambiance unless they also continue to soak up food and drink—not at least if others are awaiting a table . Unlike with fine dining restaurants where courses may be carefully timed, tapas are traditionally served in no particular sequence as soon as they become ready. In Spain, patrons often drift from one tapas bar to another, eating and drinking as they go, but good luck finding another one of the same quality and authenticity in these parts (unless Blanco decides to open another).

Perhaps the most intriguing possibility Blanco is contemplating, however, would place Ibiza Tapas & Wine Bar in rare company, indeed. Mindful of El Bulli in Roses, Spain, whose chef Ferran Adrià is considered by many to be the world’s best and whose fans come from all around the world for 30-course tastings, Blanco is planning to take reservations once nightly Sunday through Thursday for a table of six who would receive as many as 32 courses, tasting their way through much of the menu. While the food would be simpler fare than what the world’s leading molecular gastronomer serves, Blanco would charge a mere $60 per person (drinks excepted). The only other Nutmeg restaurant I can think of where one can arrange a tasting of double-digit courses is Hartford’s PolytechnicON20 (a restaurant which I also recommend to anyone who will listen).

The Reality

On Monday, June 16th, Ibiza Tapas & Wine Bar held its Grand Opening. Roughly 300 invitations for free tapas and wine had been handed out around town, and perhaps another 300 email invitations had been sent out. Anyone who got indirect word of the event or just happened to stop by was welcome. The opening was held from noon to midnight to try to prevent everyone from congregating at the same time. That strategy worked—somewhat. The restaurant was busy during the afternoon hours but mobbed during the evening hours, with estimates of more than 2,000 total people having attended, equivalent to roughly one-thirtieth of the town’s population.

The ever-hospitable Blanco mingled all day with his guests.

Good live music was featured.

The event was so successful that the Hamden fire department had to caution that revelers needed to keep their drinks inside the restaurant and stay within the approved capacity of the restaurant.

Ten tapas particularly suitable for finger food were circulated. Partiers enjoyed tortilla Española, tuna or meat-and-vegetable micro-empanadas, Requesón cheese croquettes, shrimp and scallop ceviche, chicken and chorizo brochettes with cumin aïoli, goat cheese toasts with fig walnut and truffle oil, smoked salmon toasts, sesame-seeded marinated pork loin over toast with romescu sauce, garlic chicken and gazpacho. The food was so well-received that at times it seemed to evaporate even as it left the kitchen. The wines featured included some beautiful Spanish vintages, like an Ondarre Reserva Rioja, an intense Tempranillo-Garnacha-Mazuelo blend. Opening guests went through a staggering amount of food and wine, but Blanco was just happy to get the good word out.

After the Grand Opening, the restaurant closed for three more days of training and fine-tuning before opening for real on Friday, June 19th. The final training event was a double-dinner held on Thursday, June 18th. The entire bar and wait staff was treated to most of the menu so that they could give informed ordering advice to customers.

Blanco wants to encourage patrons to try unusual dishes. If someone doesn’t like something, he’s prepared to replace it. Not that it’s likely he’ll often be taken up on that offer.

Even more interesting, three restaurant critics (including yours truly) were invited along with friends and family to experience most of the menu, an indication of both Blanco’s confidence and willingness to accept outside input. We critics had the chance to put in our two cents, but we didn’t find a great deal to criticize.

On that first Friday, the restaurant did vigorous business, turning most tables two or more times. Not bad, considering the restaurant was still missing a couple of rather basic items it hoped to have in the near future—a liquor permit, a patio, a restaurant sign on the street pole, even stools for the bar. All in due time.

Although still a work in progress, Ibiza Tapas & Wine Bar has plenty going for it. For one thing, it has a modern European ambiance unlike any found in Connecticut.

 For another thing, it seems to be drawing not just a sophisticated older crowd but also a young demographic lured by its style, flexibility and affordability.

For another, it has a warm and caring team of restaurant professionals.

And finally, it has its ace in the hole in the form of talented chef Juan García, who served with Blanco both at Ibiza Restaurant and at Meigas.

Since the opening, I have returned to try a few of the delicious tapas, which you can see pictured below.

Ibiza Tapas & Wine Bar, 1832 Dixwell Avenue, Hamden, 203-909-6512