I'm polishing my pronunciation. I've encountered a delicious new variation of tapas: pintxos (pronounced peen-tchos) originating in the northern Basque region of Spain. Here any small plate qualifies, though technically, the term should be reserved for food that is skewered. To Localé's owners, pintxos combine everything they love about food: beauty, flavour, imagination, and fresh ingredients.
So what's on the menu at the first pintxos bar in Cape Town - a hole-in-the-wall in a major through-road, with a mix of people and warm, welcoming vibe? Daily changing toppings on freshly baked health bread, or for banters, on wasabi-flavoured, crunchy seed
crackers.
On the day we had lunch the blackboard-listed delights like lamb meat balls with home-made apple chutney and Gruyère cheese shavings, crowned with rocket; bocconcini with white anchovies, roasted red pepper and olives; filzetta (charcuterie) with pickled red onions and a goat's cheese dressing; and home-made chilli mayo with a quail egg and chorizo. Deliciously fresh, all of them, with the lamb meat ball still warm, served straight from the pan.
You're expected to eat with gusto. The tasty fare should be consumed in one (max two) bites for a flavour explosion in your mouth. Don't fret if the juice dribbles through your fingers and down your chin. Plenty of paper napkins are provided for mopping up.
That pintxos surfaced in the unlikely locale of Mowbray is due to a chance encounter in a Woolies queue. When Trish Kratz of Starlings coffee shop in Claremont met equally neighbourhood-aware and dedicated Zahir Mohamed of Baked Bistro in Bakoven they found they shared innovative, lively imaginations, fired by flavour and freshness.
The result was a high-energy-cum-skills collaboration.
("A partnership," maintains Zahir, "is like a complicated dance. It has both heated arguments and laughing moments.")
Trish, after a sabbatical, was mulling over ideas of opening another neighbourhood venture with a concept she had seen in Spain and thought would suit the local market.
Together, they made it happen.
By day expect a quirky espresso bar with great coffee, free wi-fi and, apart from the breakfast pintxos (try smoked salmon, quail egg and mop-your-plate hollandaise), you'll be tempted by alluring cakes and pastries. My tip: try the light-as-air, towering lemon chiffon cake or the marzipan-oozing almond croissants.
Soon after 5pm the mood shifts. Now, as in Spain, you're in a bar filled with people from work, eager to relax. You do not eat pintxos alone. You share them with friends, over wine, craft beer or cocktails.
When Zahir likened mixing a cocktail to plating a gourmet dish, I morphed lunch into cocktail hour, enjoying my first Mojito: a refreshing, innocent-tasting, ice-packed concoction of gin, fresh mint, limes and lemonade.
While I Ioved the concept, I have a suggestion. Ask for a short break between servings of pintxos, allowing time to savour and digest.
Home bakes vary in price. Pintxos are R20-R25 each.