Bravas Bar de Tapas
Mark and Terri Stark toured Spain and came home with a tapas bar for Healdsburg, open since 2012. Jamón Ibérico and paella come out to a back garden that holds most of the room.
Why go
The Starks run eight rooms in Sonoma County and this is the one they built off a research trip.1 Jeff Cox counted thirteen Spanish sherries on the list in 2015, which he called rare to find around here, and he paired a Valdespino fino with the jamón.1 That is the case for the room. The kitchen calls paella its signature.2 Mark and Terri Stark were James Beard semifinalists for Outstanding Restaurateur in 2013, an award to the two of them rather than to this address.3
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Jamón Ibérico with a fino sherry. Cox called the pairing perfect and the ham Spain's famous cured gourmet treat.1
- Order: the house-made garlic and Manchego sausage. Cox topped his with pickled mustard seeds and rated it above the rest of the warm plates.1
- Avoid: the paella already sitting at five o'clock. Cox took the ready one over the later one and wrote that he was sorry he did.1
What locals & experts say
- Jeff Cox, The Press Democrat (20 March 2015):
To sum up: There are a few misses, but there's plenty to like at Bravas.
He liked the sherry list and the sausage, and he found the pork cheek sliders greasy, the spinach garlic burnt bitter, and several marcona almonds rancid.1
Good to know
- Hours: 11:30am to 9pm, at 420 Center St. Book through OpenTable from the operator's page.2
- The dish prices on record are 2015, so treat Cox's numbers as history and check the menu.
- The domain is not the venue. bravastapas.com belongs to a London tapas bar; this door publishes through Stark Reality Restaurants.2
Jeff's take (his words)
- His review (Jeff, first-hand, 3 stars, 2 January 2017): "Great for a snack and a drink on the patio, but I wouldn't make it a meal. The food is a bit pricey for what it is and underwhelming. I found the fideau disappointingly flavorless and under seasoned. The crab toasts had no crab on them. The pork cheek sliders were bland and boring. The aoli on many of the plates lacked olive oil or garlic flavor."
Verdict
could-visit — Two people have written this room up and they land in the same place. Jeff Cox found real cooking beside real misses in 2015, down to rancid marcona almonds and a thin five o'clock paella, and Jeff gave it three stars in 2017 and called the plates bland. Against that, the Starks' Spain trip bought a genuinely unusual list for Sonoma County, thirteen sherries deep when Cox counted. Nobody has published on the kitchen since 2015, so the rung reflects a good bar with a patchy plate record rather than a room anyone has recently vouched for.