Elena’s
90 Old Dumbarton Road, Glasgow
0141 237 4730
Lunch/dinner £10-£35
Food rating: 8/10
I VISITED Elena’s on a clammy, rainy, slightly mysterious evening, and felt as if I’d stepped onto the set of a Pedro Almodovar film; Volver, perhaps. The cast – co-proprietors and miscellaneous guests – was already assembled, an animated collection of larger-than-like characters volubly debating big themes of life. Does God exist? How do you recognise your perfect partner? And conversing not only in English, but also in German, and Spanish appropriately. The Spaniards in the front-of-house team roll their Rs as magnificently as Penelope Cruz or Carmen Maura. I’m only disappointed that Xavier Bardem didn’t show up.
Decor-wise nothing much has changed here since the venue was home to the Grumpy Goat apart from a silhouette of a large black bull on one wall, which only adds to the prevailing eclecticism where Moorish tiles rub up against Homes And Gardens twee. Almodovar would see its potential, I’m sure.
This new enterprise in Glasgow’s Yorkhill is not your usual play-it-safe Spanish offering; instead it’s self-styled as “authentic Cantabrian dining”. It’s good to see some regionalism breaking into the generic “Spanish” category. Eponymous co-owner Elena Xavier hails from Santander, the capital of this damp northern region, known for seafood from its turbulent Atlantic coast, and cheeses, especially smoked, from its mountain valleys.
I wouldn’t take the Cantabrian thing too literally though. Our first dish was actually the Galician classic, pulpo a la Gallega, discs of octopus sat upon warm sliced boiled potatoes, dusted with smoked paprika. This isn’t a complicated dish to make, once you’ve battered your octopus into a state of submissive tenderness. In fact, it’s quite plain, but it’s not your usual Costa del Sol offering either. It cost £12 but made a substantial starter for two.
The only tapas as such that you will find here are at lunchtime, or complimentary, in the evening, served before you get on to the “raciones”, much more substantial portions. On paper, this makes Elena’s seem expensive, but when you see the heft of the dishes, you see that on the whole, it isn’t.
And for £6, sepia a la plancha con alioli, described as “grilled cuttlefish with spicy sauce and garlic mayonnaise”, was a steal: again it served two. Here the cuttlefish was more exercising for the jaw – not tough, but firm, however I forgave that because its cooking juices (white wine or lemon juice, olive oil, and a ton of finely sliced garlic, fried golden) was great, especially when soaked up with the house bread, which is better than most. The alioli was the real deal, not a British garlic mayo, the garlic fresh and mellow. You could dip the cuttlefish in it, or add it to the cooking liquid, in the manner of a Provençale bourride. Either way was good.
We went for broke: seafood paella for two, £44. And I have to agree with my dining companion that it seemed a bit steep. There was much to commend it – notably, the right sort of short-grain rice, correctly cooked – but the seafood component didn’t quite merit the price tag. There was a handful of shell-on prawns, small langoustines (halved), some mussels and a few curls of squid, but they weren’t quite scintillating or abundant enough. The rice had the terra cotta potency of soupe de poissons, and was very salty. Yet I wasn’t gasping for water later, so this wasn’t overkill.
With dessert, we return to definite value for money. A rugged, broad-shouldered, sticky-edged slice of cheesecake made with Idiazabal – the celebrated, and very expensive, Basque smoked ewe’s milk cheese – was a thunderous success, fresh, unusual, generous ... and it only cost £5. “Budin de pan hech en casa” was really more like a combination of well-made eggy crème caramel with cake, a bargain at £3.50. Furthermore it was easy to believe that those ice creams (rounded vanilla, a non-cloying lemon, a really strawberry-tasting strawberry one) were indeed homemade. They tasted natural.
There’s tinkering to be done here. I’d check out alternative fish suppliers and lose some of the boring dishes. I’d also get a focus group to review the pricing structure. But Elena’s is promising.
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