Soprano

56 High St, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN1 1XF
01892 535842

You could be forgiven for looking at the name above the door and thinking that this is a restaurant specifically catering for Mafia crime bosses or singers with a ponchant for a high note. But you'd be wrong. Well they might come in occasionally, for this restaurant is always packed, every day of the week. In fact it is running as one of the most popular eating establishments in town, and for jolly good reason.
My wife and I arrived rather early expecting to sit at the bar and browse the cocktail menu but miraculously our table was empty so we sat down and ordered a rather cheeky bottle of Prosecco, which at £18.95 was an bubbly luxury. We had booked early, two weeks early, so got the favoured window seats. As we sat in our cool leather swivel chairs looking out onto the street, passers-by stopped and looked in, cars slowed and craned their necks to see what the buzz was on the normally quiet High Street.
Sopranos is a tapas restaurant, and as such your eyes usually tend to be bigger than your belly. So we dived right in and ordered six appetisers from the vast range on the menu:
Chorizo; sticky and chewy, and done to just caremlised perfection
Meatballs in Tomato Sauce; spicy!
Deep Fried Seafood; calamari, prawns and whitebait in batter, we had fights over the last few in this dish
Sardines; whole huge sardines griddled
Tomato and Cheese Salad; a tomato salad with cheese in it, tasted much, much better than it sounds thanks to a gorgeous pesto
Battered Cheese and Parma Ham thingies; an adult version of a childrens classic, deep fried battered ham and cheese, yummy.
In the end it was just all so darned tasty that we just had to make room to finish it all. That was until the dessert menu arrived, and we had to make more. I had the chocolate mouse but was rather disappointed when it turned out to be mousse instead, and my wife had the extremely boozy rum and raisin ice cream. I think next time we'll skip dessert and just order more appetisers.
If I had one complaint is that the tables are a little small and get rather full with all your dishes. Oh and it's so popular you have to book well in advance.
All in the bill came to £50.50. Well worth it for a great night of food, you won't regret it. Just book early!

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Comments

[Manny]

Yes, wholeheartedly agree with this one this is our favorite place to eat in Tunbridge Wells, whenever we are going out to dinner with friends who have not tried it we always suggest Soprano's, so much so they know us rather well in there now. As Anke suggests it can get really busy especially at weekends (Fri/Sat), where they have two sittings 7pm and 9pm, if your in the early sitting make sure you arrive promptly or you will wait ages for your food and get hurried as 9pm approaches.

[Hatters]

Six of us ate here yesterday evening (Saturday). We were on the early sitting. The place wasn't busy. I was surprised and disappointed by the lack of Spanish wine choice for a tapas restaurant. I'm also not convinced some of the tapas were all that authentic, eg; spicey chicken wings or garlic bread. Perhaps some nice fresh bread and aioli could have been offered. Also, a vegetarian paella was offered but nothing with any meat of fish in it. Surely that would have been easy to do? It would have been helpful if they'd perhaps had a set or suggested choice of tapas for groups. We did have a nice meal. However, our bill was bought to us without the staff asking if we'd like anything else, nor anything like an apology "I'm sorry, we have people coming in, do you mind if we bring you the bill" kind of thing. It was 9:20. However, there was nobody waiting in the wings for the table. There were plenty of other spare tables in the restaurant. We walked past an hour and a half later, there were still plenty of spare tables. So a nice experience, but not a great one unfortunately.

[El Burro sin Nombre]

Agree with Hatters - not sure that all dishes are really tapas (a lamb chop for instance). Enjoyable atmosphere, good service and reasonably priced but the food was a little bit bland.

[New Yorker in Tunbridge Wells]

This is one of my favourites in Tunbridge Wells for an informal tasty meal. I just wish they were bigger with more elbow room. Food is great - meatballs addictive - the aubergine with cheese on top hard to pass up. The fresh anchovies on top of caesar salad or as a dish on their own are so much better than those salty types you get elsewhere! This place ticks all the boxes and I hope they continue to prosper.