London's Aqua Nueva Offers Tapas With A Twist

Aqua Nueva, a restaurant and bar, has a glitz outside of today's zeitgeist. This kind of swank feels very boom-time, and with clientele to match: eager-looking men in suits and women in work-smart, night-out-ready dresses. There's a doorman downstairs to check that you look the part. The whole building is an Aqua complex, which also encompasses Japanese Aqua Kyoto. Other Aqua joints are in London's Shard and Hong Kong — locations that are indicators of the expense-account vibe of the brand.

Once you get inside (head up to the top floor) it's Art Deco-goes-to-Hollywood, with big sexy chandeliers, padded paneled walls, a jazzy little band, and curved leather banquettes. You can't go wrong with a banquette. There's a terrace for drinks, perfect for sundowners, overlooking the city's rooftops behind Regent Street. The bar specializes in cava, with multiple award-winning wines.

It's the kind of place that's out to impress, and feels like the ideal place for an upmarket office lunch to treat the team. The food is showy too. This is tapas, but not as we know it. It's contemporary, fussy, and beautifully presented, the work of the conversely unassuming Mexican chef Yahir Gonzalez, who trained and worked in Spain before coming to London.

Guests can select from classic and contemporary menus. We plump for mainly the latter, and start with a styled tomato salad with a transparent gelatine strip across the top for no apparent reason, sharp tomato taste and a mild goat's cheese cream that reappears in several dishes. It's served on a rectangular, slate-dark plate and is Insta-ready, a tumult of color and texture.

Also intriguing are the fried mussels, a signature dish, served on another 1980s-homage plate with a dab of the favored goat-cheese cream, with the dark shells as boats. Octopus is extremely good: dark and intense, served with the taste-twisting sweetness of spicy red potato. It's again good on texture, crunchy and fragrant with coriander. A slick of red mullet is presented with a dollop of chickpea cream, but the dish that lingers in the memory is duck with cherry, where the the tanginess twangs your taste buds just the right amount.

We finish with carrot cake, on a slate (of course, this is such a slate-as-plate restaurant) dusted with gold dust, and accompanied by carrot sorbet. Interesting, but carrot cake just feels... wrong for the end to a meal, however deconstructed. However, we hear the churros are very good. Fancy tapas? Its va-va-voom glitz might feel a little out of time, but Aqua Nueva's tapas with a twist is an undeniably enjoyable piece of escapism off Regent Street.