Aqua Nueva

Aqua Nueva Restaurant Review:

Hong Kong’s Aqua group has established itself at the top of what was once Dickins & Jones department store. Aqua Nueva is the Spanish part; there’s also the Japanese Aqua Kyoto, plus three terraces, one with the bar, Aqua Spirit. You get in via the entrance on Argyll Street opposite the London Palladium and are taken upstairs in a lift to a corridor that separates the two restaurants. Aqua Nueva is long and thin, with tables and banquette seating facing a bar where you can also eat, and odd décor of wooden objects hanging from the ceiling. The tapas are more sophisticated and inventive than you usually find, and suitable for the clientele. Try 24-hour marinated and braised oxtail with pumpkin purée; potato with chorizo and egg yolk; and pork with morcilla and confit apple. When the place jumps, it’s wild, particularly if you’ve visited the cocktail bar beforehand.