S Palo Tapas Bar
amir Zaiter , owner of Palo Tapas Bar , isn ’ t interested in riffs as much as romance — his love affair with Southern Spain so pronounced that he left corporate America in pursuit of a culinary homage . In the midst of a prolonged restaurant crisis , Zaiter has taken over the old 3 Steeple Street space and turned it into a cross-cultural mecca . The building — one of the state ’ s oldest industrial-related examples — is roughly 200 years old and its history shows in dense aesthetics . Zaiter has accentuated its Colonial roots — exposed stone and iron piping — with Spanish posters and Moorish textiles . The space is moody in all the right ways , a vision of intimacy desperately longed for .
The menu is also imbedded in the past but fully ensconced in Andalusian products and preparations . To call it tapas is almost a misnomer in that dishes are far more than bite-sized and , in some cases , lavish . Building a meat and cheese board is an exercise in design as wedges of Manchego , wine-steeped goat cheese and ribbons of Serrano come decorated with a panoply of sides . Apricot mustard , caramelized onions , pepper jelly , Marcona almonds , dried cherries : The amalgam is an artist ’ s palette of the world ’ s best bites . Even in a time when the ritual of dinner is slightly marred by the temporary use of paper plates , Palo manages to make dinner elegiac .
But to eat the kitchen ’ s warm tapas is to feel the Spanish sun on your face and to hear flamenco vibrating under your skin . Zaiter is intent on proving that this is the world ’ s most romantic food — rich with Rioja and garlic — and it ’ s pointless to argue with him . Besides , why would you want to when the menu gives you a season pass on all things meat ? Grape leaves ( hojas rellenas ) are stuffed with ground beef and topped with tangy pomegranate molasses ($ 10 ); croquettes are stuffed with chunks of chorizo and served alongside quince jam ($ 8 ); meatballs ( albondigas ) lounge in a tomato sauce tinged with sweet , perfumed spices ($ 10 ). If you ’ re intent on proving that you can eat anything without regret , then it ’ s right to torreznos ($ 10 ), deep fried cubes of bacon that taste like pork croutons and European gluttony .
The scent of Zaiter ’ s Harlequin novel is indisputably garlic and it never loses its appeal . Pan con tomate ($ 7 ) is the Platonic toast : charred , slightly soft and riddled with garlic . It ’ s outdone only by gambas al ajillo
($ 12 ), a shrimp and sherry stew from which garlic ghosts rise in celebration out of the smoke . If you think potatoes and hamburgers are comfort food prototypes , it ’ s time to travel virtually as the Spaniards wrote the manual centuries ago . For those who remain skeptical , meals end with doughnut-shaped churros with cinnamon sugar and chocolate sauce sidekicks .
Who would have thought that a centuriesold New England building would be brought back to life by a Spanish ode ? Well , Neruda probably did and he speaks for Palo when he praises the ubiquitous onion : vive la fragancia de la tierra / en tu naturaleza cristalina … the fragrance of the earth lives / in your crystalline nature . All hail the poetry of food . �
PA LO 3 Steeple St ., Providence , 414-7610 , paloprovidence . com . MUST GET Meat and cheese board , gambas al ajillo ( shrimp and garlic ), ropa vieja canaria ( braised lamb with peppers and olives ).
CAPACITY Based on social distancing requirements .
108 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l JANUARY 2021