Arbequina’s tortilla is perfect: blistered exterior, alluringly sloppy interior, the potatoes collapsing among properly caramelised onions
How you feel about overt restaurant plagiarism depends very much on how precious you are. On the one hand are the don’t-give-a-monkey’s brigade. So a restaurant has “borrowed” from another? Who cares if the food is good? On the other – and I have on occasion fallen into this pursed-lips camp myself – is the irritation that comes when you know something has been lifted wholesale from a more creative original. There’s a Twitter hashtag – of course there is – something like #copy****s. People get quite cross.
Anyway, to Oxford, where I’ve long since given up trying to get a table at wildly oversubscribed Oli’s Thai, prompted by news that its owner Rufus Thurston has teamed up with Ben Whyles of former east Oxford stalwart Door 74, and opened a tapas joint, Arbequina.
Related: Dastaan, Ewell, Surrey: ‘Such freshness, such zip and zing’ – restaurant review
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