Tapas Club – Spanish restaurant in Orchard Central (Closed)

Tapas Club is a new Spanish restaurant that opened a week ago in Orchard Central, Singapore. It is located at the eastern end of level 2, right opposite another restaurant, Real Food. We discovered that it is run by D+1 Holding – the same company that operates another Spanish restaurant in Singapore – the successful Binomo Restaurant in Tanjong Pagar.

The colourful glazed wall tiles, wrought iron grills and wooden ceiling beams brought a touch of Spanish atmosphere to Tapas Club, Orchard Central.

Tapas Club Menu

The menu at Tapas Club is straightforward – just focusing on tapas. Small tapas and large ones “Tapas+” costing around $12 and $20 each respectively. Here are pictures of some sections from the menu as well as a few pages from the Tapas Club wine list. The wines are quite modestly priced with bottles mostly around $40 to the $100+ range. Some wines were available by the glass and in 500 ml servings.

The wine we selected was a Spanish chardonnay ($30 for 500 ml). It was served in a porron, a traditional glass wine pitcher.  It looks like a teapot, except that the spout opening is made very small so as to make the wine discharge at a high speed into the open mouth of the drinker. This enables the vessel to be shared, avoiding contact with the lips. We did not have to worry about the intricacies of that procedure as wine glasses were provided.

It is fair to say that the wine that day was not a complex wine. It was light and simple and did its job of enhancing the enjoyment of the food. The padron peppers ($12.90) were nicely cooked, with a crisp surface and leaving some juiciness inside.

The tortilla ($9.90) was a plainer dish.  A good dish but not exceptional.

The deep-fried sardines ($12.90) were very good, reminding us of our recent trip to Barcelona.

There are a few types of paella on the menu at Tapas Club. We departed from our habitual choice of either squid ink paella or mixed seafood paella and decided on the chorizo paella ($25).  It looked lovely in the paella pan. The taste of the chorizo made this a paella that was more flavourful and robust than the seafood variants.  It was a bit more salty than we would have liked. We gave our feedback to the friendly Chef Manuel when he came around to meet the customers.

We also received a pleasant surprise at the end of our meal – a complimentary churros with chocolate sauce (Menu price $8).  Overall, our lunch at Tapas Club was a pleasant one. It is good to see a nice Spanish restaurant open in Orchard Road at a price point that is more targeted at ordinary patrons who find the prices at Binomio a bit out of reach.

Ratings:
Food: 4
Service: 4
Value: 4
Atmosphere: 4
Overall Rating: 4 TOPs 

181 Orchard Road
#02-13
Orchard Central
Singapore 238896

Nearby MRT Station : Somerset