A few years ago before I was about to visit Spain for the first time, I made the mistake of admitting to James that I was worried about the food because I didn’t like tapas. He hasn’t let me forget it since, although I will now willingly admit that I really like tapas. Before I had properly experienced it, I thought it was all olives and calamari and other things that I would prefer not to have. However now I’ve been to Spain, and had tapas in the UK multiple times since, I can confirm that whilst I may not love those specific dishes, I definitely do not have a problem with tapas generally. Which is why I was pleased to hear that we would be going to a Spanish restaurant while we were in Manchester for the weekend, although it gave James another opportunity to tease me.
Evuna is clearly quite popular so I’d recommend booking a table if you are going at a busy time. There are two in Manchester; one in the Northern Quarter and one on Deansgate (which is the one that we went to). The staff were friendly and welcoming, as well as being very efficient, providing quick service.
There’s plenty of choice on the menu but if you don’t mind limiting your choice slightly you can get three different tapas dishes for £10.99 on a deal. This actually works really well if you are in a group of four as there are twelve different dishes on the menu so you can just order one of each and share them between you, without it being too expensive. This will give you a selection of fish, meat and vegetarian dishes to try. I found all of the tapas that I tried really tasty. The Patatas Bravas was a bit spicier than I expected but it wasn’t too spicy. I even dared to try the calamari which I would definitely usually avoid, and although it wasn’t my favourite dish, it was much nicer than I expected.
Whilst the tapas is filling, particularly if you have also had some bread to start, it isn’t too filling which luckily means that there is plenty of room for dessert! I had the chocolate cake which I can definitely recommend. It was quite rich, but it was nice and gooey in the centre, tasting a lot nicer than the above photo suggests. I almost went for the almond cake but having seen a chocolate cake on a different table it looked too good not to try. Unfortunately the restaurant appeared to have run out of strawberries so all of our desserts came with the slightly unusual garnish of lemon and lime twists. James went for “Spanish cheesecake” – we weren’t 100% sure what that was but it turned out to be a baked cheesecake.
We were quite a large party, and there were two other large parties in at the same time so the restaurant is clearly used to dealing with groups. We went before the theatre (Manchester Opera House is just around the corner) but it’s the sort of place that you could easily spend an evening at, sampling a range of dishes and enjoying the wine.
