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Please note, Lola Rojo has now closed. Time Out Food editors, November 2018.
Lola Rojo has long been a destination of choice for discerning Hispanophiles. In the evening, the stylish red, black and white dining room practically bursts at the seams (tables are tiny and booking is essential). In summer, outdoor stools provide ideal sip-and-nibble perches for watching the Battersea belle monde doing the Bugaboo stroll-past. We were less impressed with the cooking than on previous visits, and wonder if new sibling, Rosita, has nicked Lola Rojo’s mojo.
The all-Spanish wine list remains a great advert for modern Spanish winemaking, while dishes are still imaginative and mostly well rendered: for example, marinated cod salad with orange and red onion was a successful combo of textures and flavours. There’s a good selection of porcine pleasures, from chorizo to quality acorn-fed jamón, as well as a dish of slow-cooked ‘confit’ of suckling pig served with a slightly too-sweet vanilla-spiked apple sauce and parsnip crisps.
Chestnut mushrooms stuffed with Menorcan sobrasada sausage were given an aromatic, floral lift with the addition of honey, but the portion was small (and under-stuffed) for £5.70. Amid the deafening evening din, staff struggle to keep up with demand and, as a result, can be brusque and slow to respond.