The Mouth: Bar Louise offers a meat party escape from the tapas trap

The Mouth finds tapas heaven: a gem in Enmore which offers way more than “three pieces of chorizo and a bottle of cheap and cheerful Spanish white for $100”.

Bar Louise: Forgive the twee setting, because what is happening behind the facade is essentially a meat party. Picture: Supplied

Yes, yes, we know, we’re not supposed to ever say anything mean about the hospitality industry because it’s “doing it tough”, “pandemic”, yada, yada, yada.

But would it be terribly mean to point out that even so, there are some tremendous opportunities for clever operators to scoop massive profits out of diners?

Most obvious among these would have to be the hotel breakfast buffet.

This column recently experienced one in the Hunter Valley that was “included” in the room rate (for an extra ungodly sum) and gave guests the privilege of all you could eat dry scrambled eggs and other peoples’ children having shrieking fights over the toaster. Tres romantique.

Meanwhile, a reader travelling in the US tells of recently being slugged $US26 for a similar experience, which after tips and currency conversions comes out to the price of a mid-sized Nissan.

Bar Louise,

And then of course there is tapas, which we always believed was actually a Basque word for “three pieces of chorizo and a bottle of cheap and cheerful Spanish white for $100, please”.

Happily there are exceptions to the rule.

On a recent random Sunday we stumbled into Bar Louise Salon de Tapas on Enmore Rd, a confusingly named Spanish-ish restaurant by the same people behind Porteno and located in an almost too-cute-by-half former hair dressers shop.

Let’s forgive the twee setting, because what is happening behind the facade is essentially a meat party.

There’s all sorts of little snacks, like wonderful Gildas (one bite toothpick wonders of olives and anchovies and peppers and such) and some of the most beautiful white anchovies we have had in a while.

We chose to lighten things up with some salads, but even these are wonderfully rich. Think potatoes and prawns, and fat ox heart tomatoes in an anchovy mayo, sort of like a kinda vegetarian-ish vitello tonnato, if that makes sense.

Then, more meat!

White sausages … fried pork belly … both delicious … and some beef tongue that should have been better but wasn’t awful, though it was still offal.

Washed down with some light vermouth and seltzer concoctions so as not to pass out before six, the bill was startlingly light split four ways and proved that tapas is not always a trap.

— The Mouth is an anonymous critic and bon vivant who pays his own way around Sydney and beyond.