Cantina la Estación tapas bar Úbeda Jaén

cantina estacion
As you might expect from a bar called the station canteen, there’s a distinct railway theme to the décor, from the old pictures to the safety lamps and luggage rack, with the restaurant section very much resembling a railway dining car. As you walk in there is also a separate tapas bar, which extends into a sit-down tapas dining area. We stayed with tapas on this occasion and were disappointed not to make it back to try the restaurant as I’ve heard such great things about it.

The tapas menu was nicely varied and we started with a complimentary tapa of small chicken thighs with herby yoghurt sauce, and were again impressed with the standard of the “free tapas” in this part of Andalucia. We followed this with some half-portion selections from the main menu – a pipirrana de bacalao (an elegant take on the local cold salad of tomatoes, onions and peppers served with cod), a seafood burger of chipiron and prawns with ali-oli in a squid ink bun, and a complimentary “tigre” with prawn bread and Iberian cuts, all of them excellent. To finish off we decided on a media-ración of presa Ibérica in mushroom sauce. Unfortunately, although the sauce was superb, the meat was fatty and gristly. To be fair, we weren’t charged for it as we couldn’t eat it, but it did put a bit of a damper on an otherwise very good meal (though not enough to put us off going back).

Excellent service, very good wine list and great ambiance. My only real complaint was the use of a chemical “air freshener”, which was so strong that it actually interfered with being able to taste the food and wine properly.