Eslava, Seville

Eslava, a thirty-year-old landmark on Seville’s gastro map, goes from strength to strength in the increasingly hip barrio of San Lorenzo. The original tapas bar was opened in 1988 by Sixto Tomar and his wife Rosa, together with Isabel Capote, so initiating a symbiotic trio. “I was very young when I started here—I had just finished a five-year course in hotel and catering,” she tells me between juggling pans and produce. Once they opened a restaurant next door, the rest, as they say, is history.

Isabel is calm and highly organized, steering a large kitchen team working in two shifts from morning until well after midnight. The restaurant opens its doors for classic Spanish eating hours but, unusually, the bar is open all day. If you drop in during the afternoon you are surrounded by foreign foodies busy Instagramming; go much later and the decibels have risen to authentic Spanish levels and the place is heaving.