Press and Opinions

The Which? Good Food Guide

With its low-key décor and open-to-view kitchen, Williams & brown presents a cool setting for some understated modern Spanish tapas. You can graze your way through a constantly changing blackboard menu, mixing classics with up-to-date ideas, so albondigas (meatballs), escalivada, excellent mini chorizo baked in cider, or morcilla with chickpeas, stand alongside chicken livers in cognac, paper-thin Cecina smoked beef, and Catalan honeyed chicken. Specials are scrawled on a mirrored wall and take in lamb cutlets with chickpea & cucumber salsa, and a vegetarian paella of spinach, tomatoes and pine nuts, while a short dessert selection can deliver a first-rate pear frangipane tart. Reporters approve or the concept and service wins points for its friendliness.

BBC Olive Magazine

The menu at Williams & Brown Tapas is unashamedly biased towards all things fishy, reflecting the quality of local seafood available. Owner Christopher Williams is also meticulous in sourcing authentic Spanish ingredients.

Time Out Eating and Drinking

Williams & Brown bring a taste of the Med to customers at their classy deli in Harbour Street. At this new venture – on the site of the former Harbour Street Café – the food is every bit as appealing, with the menu and the cooking singing of true Spain. The simple, low-budget interior consists of white walls, a few modern prints, crowded tables and bar seating set cheek by jowl with chefs beavering in the tiny kitchen. The ingredients around which the dishes are built are prime quality and cooked to a high standard – it is all in the execution, the freshness, the flavour. Everything here is good: char-grilled sardines, twice-cooked octopus with paprika oil, squid dusted with paprika flour and deep-fried, chorizo cooked in cider. Daily specials include the likes of kidneys cooked with Marsala and cream, and spring greens and chickpea tortilla. Booking is essential at weekends.

The Times

This small but perfectly formed tapas bar is a branching out for the owners of Williams & Brown deli further along Harbour Street. Cooking is a serious matter with all ingredients caringly sourced and, as with the minimalist décor, simplicity is the virtue of classic dishes such as deep-fried whitebait with aioli and deep-fried squid dusted with paprika flour. For every familiar dish you order, it’s well worth seeking out one of the more unusual specials; try the scallops with ham and chilli, or the new-season lamb and lentil salad.

Telegraph Weekend

Tapas bars are shedding their cheap and Cheerful image and now show Spanish cooking at its finest, says Tessa Boase.

Warm and elegant bar/restaurant opened last year by two Hispanophiles, with the focus on authentic ingredients.

Don’t miss: Morcilla (black pudding) with chickpeas, Raisins & pinenuts; Manchego cheese with quince; Pata Negra ham.

The Which? Good Food Guide 2012

The enduring attraction of Whitstable's long-standing tapas bar is Christopher Williams' real understanding of the Spanish way of cooking. Decor is low-key, with a few tables and bar stools at marble counters running the length of the windows. The menu includes 'simply delicious' roasted cherry tomatoes on garlic toast, char-grilled lamb gigot with butter beans and aioli, boquerones with guindilla peppers, and paella, all delivered quickly from the open kitchen. Spanish House wine is a reasonable £14.95 

Jay Rayner in Observer Food Monthly 2010

Jay Rayner recently listed us as one of the 'four best places to eat solo.' He says: "Sit at the back of this small but perfectly formed tapas bar serving impeccable jamon Serrano, chorizo baked in red wine and honeyed chicken. As befits a seaside town, the fish is particularly good."