Brightlingsea tapas restaurant offers culinary escape to Spain

The Las Naranjas Sanguinas, in High Street, recently opened its doors in Brightlingsea, adding to the culinary offers in the seaside town. 

The restaurant is open, just as one might expect from Mediterranean customs, between 6pm and 10pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and until 11pm on Thursdays and until 11.30pm on Fridays and Saturdays. 

Las Naranjas has a very welcoming and warm feel, making it easy to forget that you are actually in the rather if we can believe predictions for this summer, wet Britain. 

Restaurant - The new, Spanished-themed restaurant in High Street, Brightlingsea (Image: Newsquest)

The menu offers a varied choice of tapas, typically Spanish appetizers and snacks, with meat, fish or vegetables, offering something for every taste and diet. 

Personally, I am a huge fan of tapas, because they are great for sharing and trying new dishes without having to commit to a full plate. 

Dishes are available as half rations or full rations, ideally to have loads of what you know you will love anyway. 

Spain - The restaurant offers a range of Spanish tapas (Image: Newsquest)

Our choices were the fried calamari, the Andalusian chicken, and the albondigas, which turned up as meatballs in tomato sauce, as well as sweet potato fries, grilled halloumi and vegetables and a slice of tortilla. 

With the suggested two to three dishes per person, this seemed like a good start, and the dishes arrived quickly at the table. 

As we had only ordered half rations to make sure we would not order too much at once, it turned out to be a good decision. 

Tapas - A selection of tapas with chicken, meatballs, calamari, frittata and veggies (Image: Newsquest)

And not only in portion size but also in taste, because it was all the things that we had expected. 

Fresh and hot, packed with flavour and taking you straight back to your last holiday in Spain. 

But the true star of the show was served as dessert and made it very much worth not to over-order in the beginning. 

With a natural obsession for everything with cinnamon, I had to try the homemade churros, of course, but the leche frita, fried custard, piqued my interest too. 

As with the tapas, sharing the dessert was a great thing to do, both dishes arrived with a little ramekin of caramel and dark chocolate to dip the fried goods in. 

Dessert - Churros and leche frita, fried custard, were a lovely finish (Image: Newsquest)

Again, fresh out of the oven, those were a real treat, showing once again that the team has a magic touch for all things Spanish food. 

Altogether, the visit was a lovely excursion to Spain, conveniently close to home, but very much worth a visit, especially if the next holiday is far away.