Nice food. Good quality and well cooked. Place is a new big local with nice decoration. We tried croquetas (bacalao and jamón), presa ibérica, grilled chorizo and octopus, which I suggest to put more olive oil and paprika on it. Just a bit annoyed by the service charge of 7£

La Ventana is a brand new tapas restaurant in the heart of Dalston Square. The restaurant is spacious with a gorgeous bar area serving up fantastic cocktails and sofa booths for larger tables. La Ventana actually translates to “The Window” in English so it is good to have a few tables by the window for people watching! So excited about this cocktail menu – so many of them were up my street and also the majority are £7 or £8, which is a bargain! We had a Red Velvet Daiquiri (Wray&Nephew, Aperol, Velvet Falernum, Pink Grapefruit and Lime), Hendricks Dream (Hendricks, St-Germain, Cointreau, Lime, Elderflower Tonic) and Spicy Passion Margarita (Don Julio Blanco, Aperol, Grand Marnier, Homemade chilli syrup and lime. All of them were delicious and they were happy to adapt the flavours slightly to our taste. What a fantastic menu – La Ventana has all the classics as well as some more unusual dishes. With all tapas dishes ranging from around £3.50 – £8.00, it is good value for money. Around 3 tapas dishes per person is recommended but we just could not choose so had 8! Although I am hoping the Chargrilled Bread served with extra virgin olive oil (gorgeous warm ciabatta bread) doesn’t count right?!) we ordered the Lubina A La Plancha – grilled sea bass filler served with asparagus risotto and a balsamic glaze – not a dish I normally see on a menu and it was delicious. The Bombas, deep fried potato balls filled with beef mince, onion, garlic, chilli and herbs served with ali oli and brava sauce, another dish that I don’t see very often on tapas menus – they were absolutely huge and filling! Some more traditional dishes we had were the Chipirones, crispy fried baby squid served ali oil sauce, choi-sum salad and lemon zest (I prefer it when the squid is a little crispier and the sauce is separate but that is just personal preference), the Grilled Chorizo sautéed with baby onion, choi-sum and thyme, which was fantastic and the Croquetas De Jamon, always a firm favourite of mine. We obviously had to order Patatas Fritas, which were delicious as they had a paprika kick to them and a highlight of the meal, the Courgette Flowers in tempura stuffed with goat cheese and drizzled with honey. At lunchtime, La Ventana offers 3 selected tapas for only £12 (meat, fish and veggie) which is an absolute bargain! The food was great, seven (or eight…) tapas was absolutely enough for two people and the service was friendly and attentive. Definitely a great tapas restaurant to visit in Dalton and the music is fab!