EBG Rating: 8.8/10

Choice/Quality of Drinks:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Style/Décor:
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Atmosphere/Character:
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Amenities/Events:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Value For Money:
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Description:
While nearby El Pasaje sweeps up the passing trade with its Flamenco performances (and is well worth visiting if more expensive), this backstreet tavern en route to the bullring North of the town is a true Tabanco.

Drinking sherry in a former warehouse turned tavern, the Tabanco opened in the 1930s (and looks every inch of it) but after a period of closure reopened in 2013.

Great care has been taken to allow this venue to gracefully age, acquiring a patina of character that stands out immediately on entering.

Locals dominate here with families arriving for meals, friends meeting at lunchtime, couples for an intimate drink in the back yard and individuals enjoying a beer or sherry, in their case from Romate winery.

A “Copa de Fino” helps blow away the heat of the day, but take a look at their slips at the bar for great value simple tapas. Its “pandillitas” are famous, which are rolls heated on the grill with a variety of fillings. On Saturdays they offer a local dish as a tapa. Everything here is set at a democratic price and very fair.

Wines can be purchased by the litre from the barrel. Valdepeñas in particular is noted.

The warehouse continues into a back room then a shaded terrace, one that is easy to imagine the swells and lulls during the course of a day.

In the sense of its unabashed shrine to enjoyment and indulgence it reminds me of Fila El Labrador in Valencia, but the scale is almost like a brewery taproom or beer hall, without losing an iota of character, atmosphere or identity.

Perhaps the tapas will not meet fine dining standards but they are not trying for that audience.

Service is done at a stately pace so you may need to be patient at busier times, but this is dinky tapas bar with a crowd, it’s a relaxed, easy tavern. Let your heart rest.

Inexpressibly wonderful.

(Added September 2026)