Iberico is a small, authentic Spanish tapas restaurant hidden away in Dyson Place (just off Sharrow Vale Road in the Ecclesall Road area of town). It has replaced the small plates restaurant Tonco, which sadly closed down in 2024.

Iberico’s focus is on high quality, home-made food, using imported Spanish ingredients for authenticity. When we arrive, there’s a buzz about the place, with a busy, open kitchen including a barbecue for their ‘fire cooked’ brasa dishes.

The menu includes small bites or pintxos (pronounced pinchos) at £5 each, hot and cold tapas (£7-13), charcuterie platters (£17-20) and fire cooked dishes, ranging in price up to £22. The vast majority, apart from the obvious bready bits, are gluten free, and the team seemed very clued up on cross contamination.

To start with, we ordered some olives, Manchego cheese with quince paste, and a wood-fired roasted Galician beef Picanha. This was supposed to come with a micro leaf salad but it came with a regular-looking curly lettuce, and I wasn’t a massive fan of the goat cheese sauce. That’s a personal preference though – my husband liked it. The beef was delightful though – wonderfully soft.

We then had some crunchy belly pork, which was one of the pintxos. Now, this may have been the best belly pork I’ve ever had; I’m not always a fan but I think it had been deep fried and the fat was beautifully rendered down and perfectly crispy. The fish in a sauce with garlic was, I believe, one of the daily specials, and the other two dishes were from the Brasa or BBQ. The mixed grilled vegetables were brilliant and incredibly flavoursome. Unusually, I experienced a second ‘best ever’ moment, and unexpectedly, it was the carrots in this dish: sweet, soft and perfectly seasoned – can I get a wood fired brasa installed in my kitchen please?

The final savoury dish was the Iberico pork steak, which was perfectly cooked and succulent, and came with some mini roast potatoes.

We were pretty full after all that and could have happily gone without a dessert, but the menu had two gluten free puds that were crying out to be tried. So we shared an almond based Santiago cake and a burnt Basque cheesecake and had no problems putting them away. Both were delicious.

We really enjoyed this meal. There’s something so sociable about sharing small dishes rather than just tucking into an individual large plate of food, so was a very enjoyable experience, and we’re now plotting who we can take with us next time.

Iberico
2 Dyson Place, Sharrow S11 8XX