Costa Brava Spanish Cuisine

It’s hard to find great Spanish tapas in Orange County – not as hard as it was five years ago, thanks to improvements at Vaca, but some elements of the authentic experience still remain elusive. So we’ve been on a quest for something local approximating the U.S. gold standard for tapas, Jaleo (Washington DC, Chicago, Las Vegas), exploring options deep in San Diego and up in Los Angeles. Costa Brava, named for the Catalonian coast near Barcelona that was famously home to the world’s best restaurant (el Bulli), is one of those places; at the time we visited, it was said to be the best Spanish tapas place in San Diego.

Costa Brava gets points for atmosphere: It looks pretty much exactly like a tapas restaurant in Spain, and the menu covers all the expected bases and then some. We were genuinely excited to see Gulas al Ajillo – garlic and olive oil-sauteed baby eels, a legitimate Spanish delicacy – alongside imported jamón, white asparagus, octopus, mushrooms, and croquetas. The problem wasn’t the variety, which would have been pretty much perfect for a tapas place, or the presentation, which was fine, but rather that everything we ordered was underwhelming in flavor: either not quite “right” or not right at all.