I was looking for a last minute meal on Saturday before a theatre visit, and we ended up getting the last table at Cubana in Leopold Square. The restaurant is above a lively salsa bar. It’s a highly themed, lively place, with loud Latino music and a great atmosphere. We sat down at 5pm, but if it hadn’t been light outside, it could have been late evening!

I had a look at the online menu before I booked and I was very impressed with the number of gluten free options.  27 of the 34 hot tapas and 6 of the 8 cold tapas are gluten free, as well as the paella and most of the side dishes. So we had tonnes to choose from with a wide variety of ingredients.

My kids haven’t eaten much tapas before and really enjoyed being able to pick loads of things to try from the menu. We ordered all sorts: Patatas bravas, Chorizo, Albondegas (meatballs), tomato salad, Serrano ham with goat’s cheese, chicken skewers with cumin and paprika, duck and aubergine skewers.

The tapas were all fabulous, with loads of different flavours. We didn’t have to wait too long for it to come either, considering how busy the place was. The one disappointment was there were only three meatballs, but we just chopped them in half and shared them out.

We also ordered seafood and chorizo paella for two, to share between five of us as a main course. The menu advised a 45 minute wait for this, but it didn’t take that long. We were all very impressed when it came, decorated with lot of mussels, clams and shell-on prawns. And the rice itself was packed with ingredients. It’s the most generous paella I think I’ve ever had in this country. (I’m used to festival paella, where you get rice and a few bits of stuff, so this was amazing!)

Unfortunately, I don’t think it had been cooked in its own serving pan as there were none of the delightful stuck on crispy bits at the bottom, but we still really enjoyed it. And our eyes were clearly bigger than our bellies as even five of us couldn’t polish it off after all the tapas, so we had to take the rest home in a doggy bag! And I’m proud to say we ate it for breakfast the next day!

I’ll definitely go back to Cubana. The food and staff were great, and there are plenty of things left on the menu to try. I’m looking forward to the rosemary and garlic lamb cutlets and the tuna steak with cannellini bean salsa. We might go without the kids next time so we can get tucked into some of the 164 rums and enjoy a bit of the Latino vibe downstairs!

Cubana, Unit 4 Leopold Square, Sheffield S1 2JG