Aqua Nueva

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Aqua Restaurant Group : Beijing / Hong Kong / London

http://aquanueva.co.uk

Aqua Nueva - London Restaurant Reviews | Hardens

A large fifth-floor Spanish bar/restaurant (with terrace), between Oxford Circus and Carnaby Street, with the potential - if it gets the right crowd - to become quite a 'scene'; it also offers a spacious and convenient setting for a business lunch.

Here's a profound thought: restaurants exist in space and time.

Was it fair, for example, for the UK's most read critic to slam a new City restaurant in part on the basis that it was deathly quiet on a Monday night?

Here we are, in an unusual fifth floor site (once part of the Dickins & Jones store) in the very heart of town, which has been turned into one of the biggest restaurant openings of recent times (with some 300 seats, if you include a neighbouring Japanese restaurant, opening shortly).

It might make an ideal setting, in fact, for a business lunch, as long as you don't mind a slightly could-be-anywhere ambience somewhat akin to a superior hotel coffee shop.

London restaurant guide: Aqua Nueva, Argyll Street, London W1 ...

Aqua Nueva… the Spanish restaurant given such a pasting on its launch last year by the critic AA Gill that you can’t imagine how the staff found the will to carry on.

But carry on they did, and they were this year rewarded when Aqua Nueva was named as one of the best newcomers by the restaurant guide Square Meal, which praised the food for being 'inventive and pretty without scaring the horses’.

The downside is that Aqua Nueva and its Japanese sister restaurant, Aqua Kyota, still inhabit 17,000 square feet of attic over a former Regent Street department store, surely one of the most incongruous locations for a restaurant whose whole look shrieks party time for City wags and It girls.

In fact, the menu at Aqua Nueva has an excellent pedigree, having been designed by Alberto Hernández, a former chef at el Bulli, and it has plenty to recommend it: crab ravioli with grilled cuttlefish, Castilian roast lamb, poached egg with pancetta, lobster with chickpeas and crispy pork, roast foie gras.

But Hernández does have a trump card up his sleeve: Aqua Nueva boasts not one, but two roof terraces from which you get a terrific bird’s-eye view of the magnificent upper architecture of Regent Street and central London.

Aqua Nueva Restaurant Review: Contemporary Spanish Cooking in ...

With all that in mind I recently visited one of London’s top high-end Spanish restaurant just a stones throw from Oxford Street, Aqua Nueva.

We sat down to our lunch and a glass of Champagne quickly made its way over to the table, along with our first dish which turned out to be one of my favourites and paired beautifully with the glass of bubbles.

Having eaten our weight in classic tapas on our recent trip to Spain, it was lovely to try the more contemporary and modern side of Spanish cooking here at Aqua Nueva.

I wasn’t completely sold on lime element with so many other heavenly flavours on the plate already, but either way this dish was outstanding – with or without the lime.

Two dishes in particular were the star courses of our afternoon and two which convinced me why Aqua Nueva is one of London’s top Spanish restaurants.

Aqua Restaurant Group : Hong Kong / Beijing / London

Aqua Spirit - cool cocktail bar with rooftop terrace

Restaurant Review: Aqua Nueva | The Soulmates Blog

Aqua Nueva is part of Aqua London, a trio of venues located on the fifth floor of the former Dickins & Jones department store on Regent Street.

Decor-wise, while the Spanish influence of Aqua Nueva’s recent refit is apparent in its russet tones and tiled floors, this is an altogether ritzier affair than your average tapas bar; it’s a low-ceilinged, tunnel-like loft space decked out in myriad spotlights and glittering reflective surfaces, giving the effect of a sort of sexy tube station.

We felt particularly privileged to be offered this dish by our waiter, as it wasn’t available à la carte that evening – so if you don’t see it on Aqua Nueva’s changeable menu when you’re there, it could be worth asking about… We took a break after the savoury dishes and headed out to see the spectacular views from the roof garden, one of Aqua London’s big draws.

By this point in the evening the space was standing room only, even on a chilly autumn night, but the vibe was such that we were swiftly offered a spot by a heater with a group of our fellow diners, where we could take in the London Eye and the lights of the West End.

Aqua Nueva proved to be an ideal location for a Soulmates date in London, leaving us feeling replete and romantic.

Aqua Nueva - London Restaurant Reviews | Hardens

A large fifth-floor Spanish bar/restaurant (with terrace), between Oxford Circus and Carnaby Street, with the potential - if it gets the right crowd - to become quite a 'scene'; it also offers a spacious and convenient setting for a business lunch.

Here's a profound thought: restaurants exist in space and time.

Was it fair, for example, for the UK's most read critic to slam a new City restaurant in part on the basis that it was deathly quiet on a Monday night?

Here we are, in an unusual fifth floor site (once part of the Dickins & Jones store) in the very heart of town, which has been turned into one of the biggest restaurant openings of recent times (with some 300 seats, if you include a neighbouring Japanese restaurant, opening shortly).

It might make an ideal setting, in fact, for a business lunch, as long as you don't mind a slightly could-be-anywhere ambience somewhat akin to a superior hotel coffee shop.

Grace Dent reviews Aqua Nueva: 'I regretted not wearing my ...

ES Food Newsletter The last time I set foot in the cavernous Aqua complex on Argyll Street, W1, was six years ago, when it was regularly pimped out as an event space.

I recall a very long evening trapped inside Aqua waiting for Alicia Keys to honk through ‘Empire State of Mind’, which she certainly did — but not before hundreds of us were chivvied off on a tour of the building, up stairs, down stairs, through tunnels and in and out of various bars and banquet areas.

Nowadays, this colossal ark of a venue is split into various sections — cocktail bar, Japanese and tapas — and has recently been titivated, primped and relaunched.

Décor-wise, Aqua Spirit, the bar area, is prettily opulent.

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London restaurant guide: Aqua Nueva, Argyll Street, London W1 ...

Aqua Nueva… the Spanish restaurant given such a pasting on its launch last year by the critic AA Gill that you can’t imagine how the staff found the will to carry on.

But carry on they did, and they were this year rewarded when Aqua Nueva was named as one of the best newcomers by the restaurant guide Square Meal, which praised the food for being 'inventive and pretty without scaring the horses’.

The downside is that Aqua Nueva and its Japanese sister restaurant, Aqua Kyota, still inhabit 17,000 square feet of attic over a former Regent Street department store, surely one of the most incongruous locations for a restaurant whose whole look shrieks party time for City wags and It girls.

In fact, the menu at Aqua Nueva has an excellent pedigree, having been designed by Alberto Hernández, a former chef at el Bulli, and it has plenty to recommend it: crab ravioli with grilled cuttlefish, Castilian roast lamb, poached egg with pancetta, lobster with chickpeas and crispy pork, roast foie gras.

But Hernández does have a trump card up his sleeve: Aqua Nueva boasts not one, but two roof terraces from which you get a terrific bird’s-eye view of the magnificent upper architecture of Regent Street and central London.