The Hispanist restaurant has reopened in Hull and is even better than before

Chef Nick Hill and partner Alex Spurr worked hard to ensure their fledgling business survived lockdowns and subsequently built an enviable reputation for their wares. Then a mixture of a slow December, soaring ingredient and (particularly) energy prices resulted in the decision to close for an extended period at the start of this year. There was also the not-small matter of the birth of their second child, who arrived bang on cue in January. So, Nick and Alex shut shop for two months to dodge the worst of the gas bills, cover paternity leave and allow a refit of the previously pokey kitchen. Once I’d spotted they were opening again, I booked a table to see what affect the break, some new kitchen equipment and a bit more more elbow room had on their excellent food.

When I arrived at Paragon Arcade – the gorgeous, glass-roofed Victorian shopping arcade that has become Hull’s latest foodie destination – I found I was The Hispanist’s very first customer. I didn’t plan it that way but they’d literally unlocked the door five minutes before I barrelled up. Staff were still wrangling with the wi-fi and Nick was looking very peeved at a couple of new bits of cooking kit. The last thing they needed was me and my poking nose. I’m pleased to report, however, that everything was completely brilliant.

Remarkably, The Hispanist seems to have found another gear. It was great before but there is now a distinct improvement. Confidence is clearly high, as is determination, and Nick seems to have let his imagination run wild with the new menu. Everything is perfectly considered and superbly delivered. The attention to detail is admirable and the quality of the ingredients emphatic.

The menu is split into para picar (snacks), quesos y charcuteria (cheese and meats), verduras (veg), mariscos (fish) and carne (meat) and each section has three or four options. I tried really hard but couldn’t find a single dish that wasn’t utterly remarkable in some way.

Ferreros de morcilla arrived looking for all the world like a cluster of Ferrero Rocher. But they were actually blood sausage balls, rolled in hazelnuts and served on a sort of compote of bacon and apple. They were mercilessly delicious. Light, mildly gamey, nutty and crumbly. I could have eaten a dozen and still wanted more.

Anyone who’s ever set foot in Spain will almost certainly be familiar with ham croquettes (croquetas de jamon Iberico) but I doubt you’ll have had them as impossibly fluffy as at The Hispanist. Once you’re through the crispy coating, it was like eating little savoury clouds.

The best dish I was served was (quite unexpectedly) tender-stem broccoli. Not normally a particularly celebrated ingredient, here it’s fried in tempura and served with mojo picon (a red pepper sauce), crispy onions and almonds. Suddenly, humble broccoli is transformed from school dinner avoidable to star of the show. Try it and you’ll believe broccoli can fly.

Another under-praised veg is the humble leek. That is until you grill them, serve them up with miso butter, salsa romesco, black garlic and a leek crisp and then call the dish Puerros. Leeks then become as extraordinary and vital as the most expensive ingredients on earth. Now, here’s a test. See at what part of the description of the next dish you begin to drool. La patata is a patty of potato cooked in chicken fat and served with smoked pickled onion, bacon marmalade and allioli. Did you go at chicken fat? Or smoked pickled onion? Or (like me and any other right-minded person) did your mouth begin to water at the words bacon and marmalade? That’s marmalade made from bacon. Surely I don’t need to further outline the joys of this dish? You want to taste it and that’s the end of the subject. Trucha is cured chalk stream trout, arranged alongside smoked apple, tarragon and kissabel apple, which is a red fleshed, sweet, berry-flavoured variety that tastes like it was developed solely to perfectly match cured chalk stream trout. Another absolute winner is cordero; coffee-marinated lamb rump with a black garlic sauce and green pea gazpacho. A brace of perfectly pink lamb cuts complemented by the two delicious little puddles of taste. It was only about halfway through the dish that I recognised the subtle taste of coffee underneath everything else. A dish that looked like nothing much at all but contained a wholly remarkable combination of tastes. Amazing stuff. For a final treat, I had chocolate and olive oil tart with sea salt and rosemary ice cream. Easily the simplest dish on offer, it nevertheless left me wondering what the Spanish is for wow. (Turns out it’s guau.) Hopefully you’ve now got the concept of exactly what The Hispanist is all about; Hispanic-inspired ingredients inventively and expertly utilised in Hispanic-influenced dishes. It sounds simple, but the cooking methods and the numerous flavours involved are decidedly complex. It’s hard to imagine that awards and listings in prestigious guides aren’t on the horizon. Food this excellent can’t fly under-the-radar for too long.

Good news, folks. Nick Hill is back in business, bang on form and currently knocking out the best plates of food available in Hull and amongst the best in East Yorkshire. There are only two or three other places working at this level in the Riding and The Hispanist fully deserves its new-found, hard-won place alongside them.

www.thehispanist.co.uk​​​​​​​​​​​​​​