Last Tuesday night, a last-minute visit by my parents provided the perfect opportunity to try a new eater in town — the Iberian tapas bar Otra on South Main Street. The restaurant, which opened in 2022, had been on my list for a few weeks.
A humble dining room and bar comfortably fill the room furnished with simple decor. Uniform, white, rectangular plates furnish the tables neatly. Everything is practical and efficient — here to serve delicious food and nothing else.
The menu is large, and filled with little tastes and bites of everything — perfect for a large group to share. I would highly recommend looking over both the a la carte menu and the tapas menu, which includes an assortment of meats, dips, skewers and cheeses.
We started with the bread service, which came with a delightful aioli lactonese, a sort of garlic yogurt dip, olives and marcona almonds. The aioli is a must-try item: lightly salted but irresistible paired with the unassumingly decadent Portuguese rolls and baguettes.
Then came our first dishes: Pork Belly a la Plancha ($15) and Catalonian “Pissaladière” ($16). The pissaladière was my personal favorite — an addicting savory flatbread that had just the right amount of caramelized onions, roasted peppers and manchego, with bits of tart olives to balance out the heavy flavors. The crust was crispy on the edges, lightly charred in the wood-fired oven and chewy in the center, slightly sinking under the weight of its toppings. It offers an easy two-bites that leave you craving more. Our party of seven devoured the flatbread in seconds, and the next order of the flatbread barely survived five minutes on the table.
The seared pork belly was another delightful surprise, sitting atop a bed of piperade, a delicious tomato, pepper and onion stew. The piperade is sweet and cuts straight through the fat of the pork. Another must-order item.
For our mains, we got the Cataplana Marisco ($45), Carne a la Plancha Con “Huesos Huescos” ($45) and the Paella a la Valenciana ($35). There is something about Iberian flavors and incredible fresh New England seafood that’s just a match made in heaven. My favorite was the cataplana, which gets its name from the clam-shaped copper vessel this seafood stew — packed full of squid, shrimp, scallops, mussels and, of course, littleneck clams — is served in. It sits in a steamy, spicy tomato broth, which you should definitely mop up with the toasted garlic bread.
The steak with bone marrow and potato crisps was solid but nothing special. I would recommend skipping this to save your appetite for the more traditional Iberian flavors, like the Paella a la Valenciana, a classic Spanish rice dish. It’s rippling hot and a beautiful orange, interrupted with a generous portion of chicken thighs, clams and diced peppers. The chicken was the best part of the dish — juicy and absorbing all the wonderful flavors from the rice, with just a hint of delicate saffron to round things out.
While we enjoyed our extravagant feast, the soft guitar music slowly brought me closer and closer to the Spanish seaside — I almost forgot about the cold outside. Dinner moves slowly at Otra, but with conversation flowing and the food gradually arriving in droves, there’s hardly any downtime between bites of tomatoes and seafood. By the time dessert arrived, we were stuffed, but I had just enough room for a slice of the Key Lime Tart ($15), which was the perfect morsel of sweetness to round out my meal. I’ll definitely be back to relive my Iberian coastal daydream and try out the other tapas on the menu.
Service: Friendly, helpful
Sound level: Conversational
Recommended dishes: Pissaladière, Cataplana Marisco
Hours: Tuesday through Thursday 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday and Monday Closed
Price range: Small plates $8–20, Entrees $20–45
Wheelchair accessibility: Yes
★★★★/5
Christian Yeung ’29 can be reached at christian_yeung@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
