At Casa del Mar, the View Is Tops, but Tapas Need Work

Every few years tapas make another assault on the food world in hopes of becoming the next big thing. This time around restaurateurs see tapas as a way to capitalize on the younger crowd’s penchant for cocktails and grazing. Though Cava in the Beverly Plaza Hotel on 3rd Street and Alegria in Long Beach have offered tapas for years, with varying success, more and more Southern California restaurants are trying out the format.

This summer Jennifer Naylor at Granita in Malibu is playing the tapas card on Friday nights at the bar. And now Casa del Mar, the Santa Monica beachfront hotel, joins the club with a special tapas menu on Tuesday nights in their spacious bar and lounge.

As you walk up the luxe hotel’s grand staircase to the main floor with its sea of sofas and leather armchairs, you hear the strains of a Spanish guitar, which gets louder--and louder--toward the front of the vast room. Why does every instrument have to be amplified?

We were lucky enough to nab the last table in front of the windows just at sunset on a recent Tuesday. The place was packed, and it looked as if one lone waitress was trying to serve half the room, which may be why the service was so out of step that night.

Tapas are the theme, right? So it’s natural to think Sherry. Yet when I asked if they have any Sherries by the glass, longing for a dry fino or a lovely manzanilla , the waiter brought me their Port and dessert wine list. OK, so these are California-style tapas, but I think they’re missing an opportunity here.

We ordered a slew of tapas, almost all of them, in fact. And once they started to arrive at the table, we realized these are not tapas-sized portions at all. Two people wouldn’t be able to sample more than two or three. Who would want to eat more than one piece of the dull frittata? Or worse, that spinach and mushroom roll. Or the tasteless octopus stewed in a perfunctory tomato sauce with chickpeas. They should be offering little plates of good olives and almonds warmed in olive oil like Lucques does.

The best items are the quesadilla, the grilled shrimp on a skewer and a small plate of serrano ham and cured sausage. But then the selection changes often, so you may not find any of these on a given night.

For the very hungry, there’s always a burger with bacon or cheddar at $12.50.

For more ballast, you can add one of the desserts, none of which has a thing to do with the tapas or Spanish theme.

At $8 a pop for the tapas, noshing at Casa del Mar, especially if you drink cocktails, is not exactly inexpensive. The view, however, is unbeatable, and if you want to relegate it to background, there are those comfy sofas and, on damp evenings, that fireplace.

Tweak the menu, pull the amplifier out of that Spanish guitar, and offer at the very least some Spanish wines by the glass, and this tapas concept may fly. Right now, it’s too unevenly executed and ill-conceived to make many converts to the tapas lifestyle.

I’m kidding, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a book of that title showing up soon at my local mega-bookstore.

* Casa del Mar, 1910 Oceanfront Walk, Santa Monica; (310) 581-7714. Tapas Tuesday nights from 6 to 11; $8 per item. Valet parking.