Restaurant review: Bar Azita - St Albans Times

03 Dec 2025

Posted at 15:32
in Harpenden, Review

James Cameron heads to Harpenden to visit the perennially popular Mediterranean restaurant…

I generally assume, unless something is a new opening or a hot ticket, that I could just turn up at a restaurant on a Wednesday night and they could fit me in. Not so Bar Azita, the delightful Harpenden Tapas restaurant that is the focus of my critical eye this week (it’s my left eye, in case you’re wondering).

Clearly the lure of the inviting candles and the pungent aromas drifting out are too much for the disgruntled Harpenden commuters making their way down from the station through the November cold.

Now clearly they were able to accommodate me somehow, otherwise this would be a short and not very informative review, but how?

They sat us at the bar. Not very exciting after all that build up, sorry. It was quite a high bar, so I felt a little like a child at the big table for the meal, but on the plus side we never had to wait to get a drink. It is entirely right and just that I should be punished for under-estimating the appeal of Bar Azita, as this is a lovely neighbourhood joint and if I lived any closer I would be whole-heartedly joining the throng of regulars.

Azita describes itself as tapas but it definitely takes the occasional journey into mezze and beyond. The menu features Patatas Bravas and Chorizo of course, they would have a crowd of angry Spaniards to deal with if they called themselves a tapas restaurant without them, but they also have dips with pitta and Spanakopitta so you can have the best of both worlds.

In fact the menu is rather daunting with its range so I was very happy that they offered a set menu which took most of the decision-paralysis away.

Most but not all. For £50 for two people you receive two cold starters (plus Cretan Pies and Mediterranean Mushrooms), one of four sharing plates, a side dish and churros to finish, very good value but with some crucial decisions still to be made.

For the cold starters we went all dip, served with some lovely warm pitta. There was Olivieh which confusingly does not feature any olives that I could ascertain, but instead was a lovely creamy chicken dip of Persian origin.

Alongside this was Bademjansalata, another dish I had never come across though of course I know his sister Tarama very well. It is an aubergine dip, very reminiscent of Babaganoush with the same smoky undercurrent.

The mushrooms were pleasant but the Cretan Pies were fantastic, crisp pastry filled with creamy feta and drizzled in honey sweetness. Unfortunately we

only received one of these delights each, as I could happily have eaten a bucketful.

There was quite a wait between ordering and the starters arriving, but once they did food arrived in wave after wave of deliciousness. We had gone for the Eastern Promise platter at the recommendation of our waiter, and were grateful for it. If the first bite is with the eyes I was pretty much full up from just gazing at the massive plate of succulent grilled meat.

My general rule with Mediterranean restaurants is to go for lamb, as they generally know what they’re doing with our woolly friends. I would say that, tasty as they were, the Lamb Souvlaki were probably the weakest of the meats as they were slightly chewy. The Chicken Shishlik were more juicy, and really held the flavour of the fire they had been cooked on. King of the platter, though, were the Pastourma, spicy beef sausages. These were joyous mouthfuls of flavour and, plentiful as they were, I regretted the end of each one.

The meat was served on a bed of Chimichurri which both offset the meat with a bit of fresh goodness whilst also sopping up the juices.

Although there was no shortage of food, I finished the savoury section at the point where dessert did not feel a distant absurdity, and so we acquiesced when the waiter suggested we order some additional churros to supplement the single portion that was part of our deal.

We had some hot drinks to go with these, but actually the drinks arrived quite a while before the churros, so they were unable to accompany them in the way planned.

I suppose I could have not drunk my fresh mint tea until then but impulse control is not my strong point.

When they did arrive the Churros was of a good quality. They had the right blend of crispy and squishy, but I would definitely recommend using a knee covering at this point as with the amount of icing sugar and chocolate sauce splashing around things could get a bit messy. The Churros were not overly sweet, they brought to mind chips, but then chips in chocolate is no bad thing.

It was only when I got home that a nagging doubt materialised into a fully formed realisation, like Hercule Poirot reacting to a random comment from Hastings.

We had ordered a side as part of the deal, a nice-sounding rice and tomato dish called Berenj, and said Berenj had never appeared. Now, this was clearly not needed given the fact we did not feel its absence and I am equally sure that if we had flagged this to them it would have been rectified in no time flat, but my duty here is to record the facts not the hypotheticals and the fact is I didn’t make myself ill by eating a pile of rice on top of the large amount of other food consumed.

The decor, like the food, is Moorish with tiles and mirrors leading the charge. Other than the bracing gusts of Hertfordshire cold that hit you whenever the door is opened it does feel authentically Spanish. In fact, for the full experience I see that you can rent the owners’ villa in Andaluscia from the website if you want to go fully Espanol.

If this is not a feasible option, though, and you just want a little top-up of sunshine to get you through the long winter nights, then Azita is the destination for you. Despite a couple of service snafus, excusable given the busyness of the restaurant, I have no hesitation in recommending a trip to this little outpost of La Buena Vida.

Bar Azita in Harpenden