Ikon Cafe

Today, I went to Ikon Cafe for the first time. If you do not know, Ikon Cafe is a spanish tapas restaurant in Ikon Gallery in Brindley Place.



I had some business in the area and needed to finish lunch within 50 min. 50 min is a delicate time. It is too long for a quick sandwich break but too short for a proper lunch in a restaurant. I mean, we can finish eating 2 course in 50 min, but we have to leave a large margin of time in case they cannot serve us as promptly as we wish.

For this reason, I ordered a sandwich (bocadillo) from cold tapas menu thinking that it should not take much time to prepare it in the almost deserted restaurant (there were some other people, but they were there for coffee).

I was wrong. It took about 15 min to prepare. It was partly because there was a problem in the kitchen (so I was informed later) and partly because the sandwich wasn't to be served cold but should be warmed up, even though it was on the cold tapas menu.

Although I was slightly annoyed by that, I am most pleased to say it was well worth the wait. It was the most beautiful sandwich I have seen for a long time. My order was Serrano ham and Manchego Cheese sandwich. I was afraid that it was served only with ham and cheese, but actually it contained also salad leaves and sliced tomato. The most remarkable thing was the bread. It was focaccia style bread scented with fresh Rosemary, visibly made from continental flour. I was most happy to have found such a nice bread in Birmingham.



It was also enormous, and when I finish a half, I ran out of time and took away the second half.

The service was not very good (one of the waiters knowingly ignored two customers waiting to be served: it is most annoying) and the place isn't very comfortable (rather cold and not very good chairs), but the sandwich was very nice. It would be nice if I can try tapas dishes sometime.