Jaylu

This seafood restaurant has been operating for no less than fifty years, so in the fly-by-night world of restaurants it is clearly doing something right. It is situated on the west side of the river (actually a canal) that divides Seville, but is still only a fairly short cab ride from the Old Town over the bridge. The dining room is quite formal, with nicely ironed white linen tablecloths adorning the tables, and some pleasant jazz quietly playing in the background. The lighting was a touch murky, hence the matching photos. Although there are a few meat dishes on the menu, this restaurant is all about the sea, with an assortment of fish and shellfish priced by weight, and varying according to what is good in the market that day. 

The wine list, bizarrely, omitted all the vintages but was quite extensive. It started at €20 and there was a good selection under €30, before the list climbed right up to exotica including Opus One and Mouton Rothschild. Botani Muscatel Seco was €25 compared to its retail price of about €13, and Pingus Psi was €75 for a bottle that costs around €35 in a shop, depending on the vintage. We drank Vega Sicilia Valbuena 2013 at €165 compared to its retail price of €129. As can be seen, the markups in Seville are very different from those in London.

We began with a little crab salad nibble, which was a bit disappointing. The crab flavour was rather subdued and the egg in the salad was rather dominant (12/20). Much better were fried anchovies with mayonnaise. This is a very simple dish but the batter was light and crisp and the anchovies had really excellent flavour. In fact I can hardly recall eating better ones (15/20). Bread was made in the kitchen and was very pleasant, a focaccia like bread having particularly soft texture and good flavour (15/20).

Tuna tartare was also terrific, the tuna not chopped too fine, the flavour very good indeed, the seasoning accurate, with a well balanced dressing (16/20). Our main course was sea bass, which we shared. This was pan-fried and was accurately cooked, the flavour of the fish being good. It was served quite simply with some shredded leek and mayonnaise (14/20).

Millefeuille had a light, fluffy pastry filled with pastry cream, served with hazelnut ice cream (15/20). I had a mandarin sorbet, a simple enough dessert yet this one not only had good texture but extremely good flavour, the fruit really bursting on the tongue as you tasted it (easily 15/20).

Service was good, though it helps if you speak Spanish as our waiters only spoke a few words of English. We managed to communicate well enough in my bad French though, so it was not an insuperable problem. The bill came to €303 for two (£132 per person) but that was with some very serious wine, and the food part of the bill was only €101. If you just shared a modest bottle then a typical cost per head would be about £65. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed Jaylu, whose food will never win any awards for presentation, and where I suspect not a single tweezer can be found in the kitchen, other than perhaps to extract pin bones from fish. Instead they focus on sourcing high quality produce and cooking it simply and well. Long may it continue.