España Restaurant & Tapas has topped many people’s list of favorite Amelia Island restaurants since it opened in 2004. My friend Patti Burch’s family were the first locals I knew to visit, and how they raved! The current owners, who took over a couple of years ago, have greatly expanded Espana.
These expansions have focused on more time and space. Espana now serves lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday through Sunday, with more days to come. The purchase of the yellow Salvador house next door has added three formal rooms for private dining, parties, and overflow. Art by Cynthia Jenkins is on display. Behind the Salvador house is a large, very charming outdoor dining space. Even with that much more space, reservations are necessary.
Patti and I stopped in for dinner the other night to see what Portuguese flavors we could discover. Red and white Douro Valley wines were light and refreshing. Each of us has always preferred the Mozambique-styled seafood because of its glorious spicy coconut milk. I asked Chef Phil Waddell for a bit of his peri-peri on the side, knowing how good his handmade sauce is.
Paella was the showpiece of our meal. Pronounced PAH-eh-YAH, paella possibly traces to Valencia in the 4th-century B.C., where farmers began a practice of stirring vegetables and meats with rice in one large frying pan, or the paella. As a shared dish, it was eaten from the paella, too, with individual spoons.
Simple as it may sound, paella is hard to get right. Key ingredients are saffron, sofrito, and socarrat. Socarrat is that toasted, caramelized rice layer on the bottom of the pan that reaches perfection shortly before it burns. While classic paella did begin with whatever meats, beans, or seafood were around, up the coast in Barcelona a seafood paella tradition arose. Both are on the new lunch menu, as is an all-meat paella and a vegetable one.
Chef Waddell’s eyes dance when he talks about his paella. “I have all the pans! I can make it for one, as I do for our new lunch, or I can make it for a party of 25 with our new oven on the porch.” Paella for one person is nearly unheard of because it is, by definition, a communal meal, but now it can be enjoyed anytime.
Patti and I are excited to return with her daughter Patricia and husband-to-be Brian Pearson. Visiting Chicago recently, Patti took them out for Brian’s first paella. “No, we will have to come to Espana for a good one because that one was not,” she says. Patti’s son, Trey, has loved España since it opened, and now his fiancé Elisa Alvarado and he share their own very spicy paella.
Patti and I ended on a cool note with Tres Leches (Three Milks) Cake and Basque Cheesecake. Tres leches is essentially a light sponge cake soaked in milks that reminds me of my childhood pudding cake. Could I have a whole Tres Leches cake of my own? No, but I could order a Basque Cheesecake. Chefs all over the world want to ship this famous dessert to us, but we know the best for us is at España. We will order online or make a reservation. España is located at 22 South 4th Street.