Iberico Tapas y Vino closes in St. James

After 2½ years, Jake Perdie and Cynthia Alfonso are saying adios to their St. James tapas restaurant, Iberico Tapas y Vino.

Iberico, a Newsday Top 100 restaurant, was named after the Iberian Peninsula, where Spain is located, as well as the country’s world-famous dry-cured ham, Jamón Ibérico, a leg of which always graced the bar. The menu was composed mostly of classic Spanish tapas — among them, tortilla Española (a plump omelet larded with potatoes), pulpo Gallego (coins of octopus and potatoes tossed with smoked paprika), gambas al ajillo (shrimp in garlic sauce) and albondigas (meatballs in a romesco sauce) — as well a paella with a pronounced socarrat (crust) where the rice stuck to the pan. There was also a deep bench of Spanish wines, vermouths and sherries.

Unfortunately, Perdie said, "real Spanish food is a tough sell here. To a lot of people, the word ‘Spanish’ refers to Central and Latin America — they would come in here and expect to find tacos or quesadillas on the menu. Selling our menu required a lot of convincing. ‘Try the meatballs,’ we’d say. ‘This is the way it’s done in Spain.’ We really wanted to be the ambassadors of Spanish cuisine."

Then too, Iberico faced the same challenges that have made local restaurant closures all too common. "In this economic environment," he noted, "people are cutting back. Weeknights are increasingly difficult and, on Fridays and Saturdays, everyone wants to come at 7 p.m. in summer, 6 p.m. in winter." The labor pool shrinks, driving up wages, while the cost of everything else increases. Perdie said his insurance "went up 60% one year to the next."

Serving mostly small plates didn’t help matters. "On a Friday night, I might have two people ordering a few plates, no alcohol, occupying their table for 2½ hours and they are spending $60. That makes it tough to make money when I only have eight tables."

Perdie, formerly a vineyard manager and the owner of both a wine bar and a liquor store, is considering getting out of the hospitality business entirely.