Chloe & Kelly review: Hermosa Cantina Spanish restaurant, Wembley
THE New Age foodie is known to spend hours looking for their next hit of culinary heaven by studying social media posts boasting photos designed to make you become instantly starving.
Hermosa Cantina is one of these places. Its @hermosacantina Instagram page is full of screenlicking photos.
I (Chloe) don’t think Kelly has stalked anything so hard in all her life, so you can imagine the excitement levels of trying this new Spanish-style eatery.
THE VENUE
That didn’t matter because it was the prettiest bar we had ever seen.
Bar stools lined the most incredible suspended table which has been covered with tiles.
Bright orange, red and blue traditional Spanish tiles are everywhere and really set this venue alight.
We kicked off with the Castillo de Albai Reserva tempranillo ($62), an incredible wine from Rioja in Spain.
The wine was followed by some complimentary olives and pan con mushrooms with goat’s cheese ($14), which smelled incredible but lacked flavour.
The cheese was a very mild, soft curd and, though beautifully presented on a toasted baguette, there was something missing.
Or maybe it could have been the wine polarising our palates.
THE FOOD
Unfortunately, the next few dishes were no different. The marinated beef pincho (spike in Spanish) was tender.
I think there was meant to be pork belly with it but I couldn’t taste it and the dish was cold. Luckily it was only $12.
The dish I was waiting for — with fingers and toes crossed that it was going to be the one that turned everything around — was the Fremantle octopus ($29).
It looked to die for. Totally Instagram-worthy. A whole tentacle, cooked in a charcoal oven, served with fresh lemon and aioli that had been aerated, almost like foam.
Being as excited as I was, I couldn’t waste time with condiments.
I stole the biggest piece of octopus right from under Kelly’s nose and I was smashed in the face with a massive bag of charcoal — or so it felt.
The texture was probably the most tender I have ever eaten, but there was no natural sweetness or salty burst from the meat because it was all charcoal.
The further down the tentacle the worse it got, to the point where the very end of the tentacle was rock hard and completely burnt. I nearly cried.
Fortunately, the smoked hock and morcilla (blood sausage) croquette ($12), and the manchego cheese and truffle onion toastie ($12) provided some joy at the table — definitely the highlight of the evening.
You can’t go wrong with a cheese toastie, especially when there is truffle involved and the cheese is manchego. The flavours in the croquette were also spot-on.
There was so much flavour in the filling and the heirloom carrot escabeche (which is similar to pickling) gave a beautiful zing to a heavy dish.
For dessert, we played it safe and asked for the best dish. The lime churros with brown butter, lemon curd and warm white chocolate ($14) was the designated winner — or loser. I’m not really sure. The curd was amazing.
I’m not sure if that was because the churros were still frozen in the middle — yes, frozen. They must have had less than a second in the fryer.
The “warm white chocolate” looked and tasted like frothed milk, making the curd the only thing edible on the plate.
This was what was being recommended? Could it be that all this disappointment was simply fuelled by the high expectations social media has generated?
That is a discussion for a different time and place. Hopefully it was just a bad night.
KELLY’S VERDICT: This stalker is moving on ...
CHLOE’S VERDICT: The tiles are the only thing that would make me even consider coming back.
OVERALL: So much potential. So much creativity with the concept of the food, but unfortunately for us it just didn’t deliver.
Source: Perth Now, Chloe James and Kelly Ramsay, 25th September 2015
Originally published as: Chloe & Kelly review: Hermosa Cantina Spanish restaurant, Wembley
