Beware the curse of the man-spreader
I'm a big fan of both Jason Atherton and tapas bars, so to stumble on a tapas bar from the Atherton stable almost on the door step was great, that we could wander in and get a seat straight away a bonus.
The bar is dominated by a huge Josper oven and a couple of seriously hot hot-plates. This was the first problem: sat at the left hand couple of seats at the bar means broiling along with the veal burgers. It's also in the route that the waiters use to take the dirty dishes downstairs, so, whilst offering great views of the cooking, is pretty rubbish as a place to sit and eat.
No matter, we were soon able to move to the middle of the bar, away from the heat of the grill, and only sporadically blasted by the Josper when opened to put in or take out some gorgeous looking steak/broccoli/carrots. Alas, this seating also has it's own problem: the seats aren't fixed. Now I know that fixed seating in bars is a bit naff, but around a bar that you need space to eat at, it really can be a pain when the person next to you (as in our case) decides that they need to man-spread across your space. I don't know if he was trying to impress his date some how, but this is a social, not an anti-social, bar.
Once he'd grudgingly moved a few inches over, we got stuck into the real business of SWaT: the tapas. And they're good. Very good: the aforementioned broccoli (broccolini to be precise) was gorgeously charred and pepped up with some chilli, the suckling pig beautifully crisp skinned (although the roasted pineapple with it not so much to my taste) and the chipirones spicy and accompanied by jet black aioli.
I still don't think this is what, in Spain, would pass as a tapas bar: it's a restaurant, or more properly a wine bar. A destination, and none the worse for it.
Service is friendly if a bit slow, the atmosphere welcoming and wine list good value.
Downstairs, as I found on a loo hunt, has a spacious rooms and another bar. I think next time (for the good so outweighs the bad that there will be a next time), I think I'll head down there, where it might be less hot, and less need to rest bar space from a human space invader.