Entre Tapas Y Vinos

Score 13/20

IT’S one of the quieter tragedies of any diaspora: homesick emigres slavishly preserving their proud traditions while the Old Country evolves beyond the sepia-toned memories.

At Entre Tapas Y Vinos, expat Spaniards Raul Moreno Yague and Abel Martin Burgos are firing a salvo at the ossifying effects of culinary nostalgia. Their St Kilda tapas bar is the food-and-wine duo’s teleporter to current-day Spain, serving the kind of food they seek out on their trips home; not the sort of dishes plucked from the pages of a Franco-era cookbook, but liquid ideas that shift and move with modern global trends.

It felt like they were taking it all a bit too literally, however, when, on my first visit to Entre Tapas just before Christmas, I was introduced to the liquid tortilla. Sucking a potato, onion and egg omelet through a straw is quite possibly an activity undertaken by octogenarian Barcelonans every day but to a thirtysomething Melburnian with a full set of chompers, it was perplexing. And not all that enjoyable.

It was the most extreme example of tapas from a place I’m relieved to see is hedging its bets by dividing the menu between modern and classic incarnations. The fact that the liquid tortilla has now vanished from the menu — a significant move for something purported to be a signature dish — shows they’re not averse to a well-timed spot of pragmatism.

So you’ll also find the familiar kind of fare that has spearheaded the local tapas revolution. The patatas ($7) are certainly bravas enough; the whole tiger prawns ($8 each) have a winning charry taint. Other classic tapas are likeable enough but undistinguished — the thickly crumbed ‘‘shallow fried’’ calamari (although I’d bet my mortgage it went into deeper waters, $12) is crunchy and soft in all the right places but I wouldn’t be able to tell the faintly garlicky aioli from a line-up.

On paper, Entre sounds like a fail-safe proposition. Yague, a former sommelier at Vue de Monde, also runs a wine import business concentrating exclusively on his homeland’s output, and Entre’s well-curated wine list is similarly chauvinistic. But better service is needed to capitalise on the current craze for albarino, verdejo, tempranillo and their brethren. There’s been no designated sommelier on either visit, which is frankly insane when a customer, perhaps tempted by something with ‘‘gran reserva’’ in the name, understandably lacks the cojones to take a three-figure leap of faith.

The rest of the service is affable but disjointed. My idea (or is that ideal?) of tapas is to pick my way lazily through small plates while paddling around a selection of wines. Here it felt rushed: plates arriving on top of each other, some being whisked away before they’d been finished. Not exactly relaxing — it was game over within 70 minutes.

Chef Burgos has racked up some time with the big guns of contemporary Spanish food, including Ferran Adria’s elBulli and Talaia Mar in Barcelona, but his modern list — liquid tortilla aside — doesn’t fall into the avant-garde camp save for some of the wording.

The goat’s cheese ‘‘lollipop’’ ($7.50 for two) sounds Adria-esque but there’s no reverse spherification going on — it’s a ball of creamy goat curd rolled in a fine crunchy silt of caramelised corn and speared on the end of a toothpick, a little blob of tomato on top lending some heat. It might have been great at the start of the meal, but arriving on the tail end (an oversight) renders its simple gifts obsolete.  Also on the ‘‘modern’’ list, the pork belly ($13) features little that’s truly creative but is a likeable example of the species: beautifully rendered  soft meat with a salty hat of semi-crackled skin and classic match of a tart swipe of apple puree.

Then there’s a Japanesque creation — four chunks of raw tuna, romesco and fresh green peas ($18). Original, certainly, but a liberal dose of soy, teaming up with salt flakes sprinkled on the tuna, is a palate-killer and prevents any real assessment of the East-West union.

The list is rounded out with a few specials and raciones. A salad of tiny fresh figs with diced manchego, walnuts, shaved jamon Iberico and a truffle-addled vinaigrette ($17) has more funk than James Brown. But the most fulsome praise goes to the slow-roasted baby goat ($25), a dish of all the gnarled complexity you could hope for, beautifully cooked meat hiding under a chewy, caramelised carapace, completed with blackened marinated artichokes, baby carrots and, hazarding a guess, a sharpening dose of fino sherry. That’s more like it.

There are some things Entre Tapas can’t do a lot about, starting with being on the ‘‘wrong’’ side of Fitzroy Street. But there’s plenty it can do to encourage people to cross the road. A less perfunctory desserts list, for one (I’ll accept the national claim on the ubiquitous churros,  $12, but the set vanilla custard, $12, is simply dullsville). And they could really do themselves a favour by rearranging the furniture to capitalise on the pleasant front bar area — it seems a waste to banish the couples down the back to suffer under the most diabolical lighting set-up since We Will Rock You: the Musical, when the big tables with a view of the street remain empty.

And final thoughts on the food, you ask? At a time when the term ‘‘authenticity’’ has more cachet than carbon offsetting, I’m happy to go with their little bit old, little bit new approach. It’s pretty good value, too. But some things about Entre Tapas involve a teleporter-assisted leap of faith that won’t always be rewarded.