If Adriano Paganini opens it, they will come. Almost immediately, there they were, swarms of diners willing to wait the quoted two hours for a table. It made me wonder: Before Barvale, where were all these people? Maybe hovering for a seat at Nopa, across the street? Maybe overpaying at Barcino, San Francisco’s other new tapas place? Maybe at Belotta or Botellón or Barzotto or Paginini’s breakout star Beretta? (Think we’re good on one-word, B-named restaurants in this town, by the way.)
They certainly weren’t at the short-lived La Urbana, which was probably why it closed and why the prolific Paginini snatched up the sprawling 140-seat corner spot.
From the looks of it, both he and Barvale will make the rent just fine. At 6 p.m. on a recent Sunday, the place was packed. Every table taken, every barstool claimed. At least the drinking-and-standing-around area was roomy, making the vibe more wedding cocktail hour than moshpit. (Complete with six pintxos for $5, with any drink.) On one night, there was even a server passing around a tray of toothpicked freebies to ease the pain. A thoughtful touch that, I have to say, goes a long way in this Era of the Wait, and one I don’t think I’ve witnessed since the blustery sidewalk outside old-school Pacific Café, where the schlocky wine still flows. (Cc: the Tartines, Zazies, and Outerlands of the city. May we have a little treat, please?)
Our trio actually happened to show up on the early side — highly advised, as our wait was “only” 45 minutes. We were seated with gin still swirling in our seemingly bottomless stemless glasses. Of gin tonics Nos. 2 (a refreshing lemony-aloe blend balanced by celery bitters and a little vermouth), 3 (lime juice, splash of Pedro Ximénez, and a hunk of pink grapefruit), and 4 (picture the liquid, alcoholic version of saffron-cardamom-scented potpourri), I liked them all, in ascending order.
I flat-out loved our server. She was as peppy as a cheerleader, but professional and, surprisingly, not annoying. She explained the menu — which, split into cold tapas (three for $16) and hot tapas (from $7 to $17), was fairly straightforward — and offered her favorites: “the atun crudo is to die for,” she said. The squid-garbanzo salpicon was nice, too. But she was beaming with pride about one dish in particular: the pulpo. “We got reviewed by Michael Bauer and his favorite dish was the pulpo,” she said. “You cannot leave here without trying the pulpo!” I would not.
But first up was my favorite: the boquerones, five shimmering, silver-white slivers, their bellies plump, their tails intact, lined up like synchronized swimmers over a spicy pimenton-spiked pool of tomato-based Iberian sauce, so good I sopped up the rest with the bread from our “charcuteria” plate. (The sauce had far more flavor than the jamon serrano anyway.) Because it’s almost a custom to finger-point and rank small plates as you eat them, my second favorite, also in the anchovy department, was the chicories covered in slabs of Manchego and doused in a creamy, fishy bagna cauda dressing. I’d go back to Barvale for this six-buck salad and a glass of Txakolina alone.
Overall, I liked the tapas frias better than the hot. The escabeche tasted 10 times better than it looked, as let’s be honest: hunks of eggplant peeled, brined, then marinated resemble banana slugs, especially when snuggled in a ramekin. Fiery, slippery, and flecked with chile flakes and crisp garlic, they were immediately devoured; over toasted bread, they were even better. The morcilla-stuffed piquillo peppers were sweet and hearty. Ironically, only the “to die for!” atun crudo disappointed: lifeless cubes of tuna with microgreens and kumquats in a mild romesco were not worth the additional $4.
The hot tapas were a little more hot and cold, if you will. Vegetables, like the charred cauliflower and the sauteed winter greens with pine nuts and raisins, were satisfying, if standard, staples. On the fried front, the croquetas de jamon were crisp, piping hot, and velvety-smooth; but the salt cod bunuelos were so bland and airy they seemed to dissolve on my tongue, like Claritin RediTabs.
And then there was the pulpo, in all its meaty, purple-hued, tentacled glory, scattered with green olives and slices of fingerling potato (one of which accidentally fell into my friend’s mostly drunk glass of wine, undetected in the dim light by everyone but our supreme server, who swooped it away and replaced it with a full potato-free glass, free of charge).
I tried the pulpo on all three visits: on one, it was perfectly tender, deserving of real-life likes, not just all 1,002 (and counting) on Bauer’s Instagram. On another, the poor octopus was literally boiled to death then nearly cremated in the pan, to the point of being more crispy than chewy. And one night it was so salty and so chewy, we stopped talking for what felt like a full minute as we watched each other work our molars harder than they may have ever been worked before.
Ultimately, at most Spanish restaurants in America, it’s the paella that represents, that underscores its authenticity, embodying the overall experience. At Barvale, it did too, in a different sort of way. “At Barvale,” explained our server, “paella isn’t a big commitment. It’s just another dish, not the main star.” I appreciated that in theory. After waiting so long for a table, who really wants to wait another 45 minutes for a $40 pan that must be ordered by all?
Our paella arrived with everything else, on a ceramic plate, not a sizzling platter, no bigger than a personal pizza, yet still easily shareable by three. (As, notably, most dishes were. These were hefty servings as far as tapas typically go. No battling for bites here!) The heaping pile of rice and mussels and whole shrimp and clams was crammed to one side, as if it had traveled in the trunk of a car up Lombard Street. Flanked by aioli and a wedge of grilled lemon, it was… well, what you’d expect from a $17 paella masterminded to fit the mood and menu prices of any Paganini restaurant. Like the others in his ever-expanding portfolio, Barvale, too, befits its bill.
For a fun, affordable, night out, it’s worth the wait — for those who are willing. What I liked best about Barvale, though, as I discovered one Tuesday eve when I wasn’t: It’s made scoring a bar stool and a burger across Divisadero a little easier.