Sophia's

A popular nightspot shows its mojo with its tapas

by Robert Nadeau

DINING OUT

Sophia's has been open since last July without a major review. I'm not sure why this is, unless some restaurant critics have simply decided that bars with entertainment don't count. (Sophia's, which occupies a building that has housed numerous nightclubs over the years, features live Latin jazz Tuesdays through Saturdays, and dancing Thursdays through Saturdays.) The restaurant may also be in the shadow of the more accessible and authentic Taberna de Haro, which is nearby in Brookline. But Sophia's has some excellent food -- and, unlike Taberna de Haro, it's a big place with lots of room. Some of the tapas are terrific on their own, and some are terrific with drinks or wine. And the place also serves up a few dinner platters that are more than afterthoughts.

Sophia's (617) 351-7001 1270 Boylston Street (Fenway), Boston Open daily, 5 p.m.-2 a.m. Full bar AE, MC, Visa Up four steps from sidewalk level to a few tables Smoking throughout restaurant

One of your tapas ought to be shrimp in garlic sauce ($6.75). The four or five shrimp are quite large, but the real action is in sopping up the garlic-flavored oil in which they swim; a big basket of crusty white bread is refilled regularly for just such purposes. Then there's manchego flan ($5.25), a dish that has knocked me out since I first had it on the opening menu at Rialto. Manchego is a rich, aged sheep's-milk cheese that takes on even more richness in a savory custard. I think that if I'm ever on death row, I will put down manchego flan for my last meal.

Sophia's baked avocado ($5.75) would be a contender for that final menu as well. It's not just the richness, but the contrasting flavors on these chunks of semi-browned delights. Who would have thought to bake avocado? Rabbit sausage ($6.75) was somewhat soft and overseasoned (with sage, a dangerous herb in some hands), but the sauce, which tasted like a hot blueberry syrup, repaired all difficulties.

The traditional "tortilla" ($4) -- not a flatbread but a slice of a thick potato omelet -- has to be part of any tapas experience. This one lost points for lack of olive oil and egg, however. (Come quick, Marge, he's criticizing the food for having too little grease again!)

Marinated mussels ($6.25) were not up to Spanish standards, although no dish with those little Catalan olives can be discounted too far. The weakness isn't the fat, fresh mussels, either, but a certain grapeyness in the marinade, like Concord wine.

At the other extreme, the most Spanish-tasting thing at Sophia's may well be the roasted red peppers ($6.75). Not only are the peppers beautiful in themselves, but they are wrapped around a piece of country ham that is to die for.

If you want to make a meal of tapas, you'll find the selection rather short on certain food groups, so the salad of baby greens ($5.75) or the roasted-beet salad ($7.50) may be for you. The former is a nice mesclun mix with a good dressing; the latter adds beets (which don't, however, have the concentrated flavor I want from roasted beets) and croutons.

If you'd rather have your meal on one plate, try something like the veal cutlet ($15), served without breading in a lively mustardy sauce, along with garlic mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. The veal is a little chewy and quite flavorful, suggesting that market veal is getting older, or perhaps that the animal-rights people are succeeding in getting those calves out of their cages.

Or you could have the Chilean sea bass ($19), a fish that has been winning friends -- if people who want to consume you are friends -- for about a year now. This one is a simple but effective fillet, served on a pile of greens sautéed in garlic, with another pile of those homemade mashed potatoes.

The wine list has some good Spanish bottles, and there is sangria, but not a lot is done with the fino sherries native to tapas bars in Spain. We settled in happily with a bottle of 1991 Balbas Riserva Ribera del Duero ($24; $6 for a glass). It's hard to find a fully aged red wine for sale anywhere today, but this was quite dry, quite big in body, and yet well softened -- a classic Spanish red.

There were only a couple of appealing desserts our night (many tapas bars have no desserts at all). We had a chocolate flan ($7) that swept away most of our misgivings about Spanish desserts, about chocolate flan, about having dessert after all that food and wine -- although I didn't understand the accompanying random flakes of phyllo. We also had a dish of three very large figs in syrup ($7) that was inexplicably garnished with a slice of cheese toast. I understand the reference to cheese, which is often eaten with fruit paste in Spanish-speaking countries, and maybe the toast symbolized breakfast. . . . And figs, with breakfast. . . . Well, I still don't get it.

But the decaf served to me at Sophia's is something I would order at any restaurant in town. Good decaf is hard to make, and hard to keep warm without its going bad. But this was so good I joked with the waiter about calling him back a few times during the night if it turned out not to be decaf. In fairness, it was early and there weren't many customers, so I probably got the first of the first pot. But for once, it was strong enough for a real coffee drinker.

Service was otherwise authentically Spanish -- which is to say, slow. Hemingway had some very dry things to say about Spanish servers who spent a lot of time putting the "wait" back in waiter. Sometimes, when there are only three tables in a big restaurant, the kitchen slows down, and that might have been the problem. But this was food served at a pace designed to sell drinks, I fear.

On the other hand, the music was salsa and Latin jazz in very reasonable tempos, including a song by Juan Luis Guerra, who went to Berklee before becoming the Dominican Republic's leading international star. If there had been places like Sophia's then, Guerra might have stayed in Boston and never would have amounted to anything.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at robtnadeau@aol.com.

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