Taste of Spain: Triana owner transforms space to offer a flavor experience through small plates

Triana brings a niche of Spain to Nob Hill.

It boasts tapas and more substantial plates, as well as an impressive list of Spanish wines and one of the largest selections of vermut and sherry in town.

“I just feel (with) small plates you get more bang for the buck because you have this whole flavor experience without committing to a whole entree,” explained Daniel Boardman, owner of Triana. “There’s actually a bunch of scientific research that shows that eating relatively small amounts of a lot of different things you get more satisfaction.”

Boardman, who dines internationally, became fond of venues that only offer tasting menus.

“I’ve eaten at a lot of restaurants around the world that are really good, that just do sampling menus,” he explained. “And so, I knew I wanted to do something in that format. Spain was just kind of a natural (fit) because I just really like the food and the wine scene there. I love traveling there.”

Tapas does not necessarily mean small bites.

“Most of them are easily shared with two or three people,” Boardman said of the tapas. “Our average person, our average ticket, the average diner has two tapas and one beverage. It’s not like they’re having endless numbers of small plates.”

Triana’s best-selling tapa is its Gambas al Ajillo ($16), comprised of shrimp sauteed in garlic olive oil with sherry and arbol chiles with grilled lemon and bread. Guests also gravitate to the most classic tapa on the menu, the gluten-free Patatas Bravas ($9), made of deep-fried potatoes, salsa brava and aioli.

“People want some starch throughout the meal to feel filled up, and so that sells really well,” Boardman said. “We make our own in-house brava sauce for that. The salsa brava is (created with) roasted red peppers, hot smoked paprika and a tomato base.”

Taste of Spain: Triana owner transforms space to offer a flavor experience through small plates

On the heartier side, the Rabo de Toro ($23) is popular among guests. It features sous vide prepared oxtail with Manchego mashed potatoes, espagnole sauce and deep-fried onions. The oxtail can be substituted for New York strip steak for an additional $10.

Preparing the oxtail using a sous vide cooking technique involves vacuum-sealing the meat in a bag and cooking it in a precisely regulated water bath.

“The oxtail is cooked sous vide for 24 hours,” Boardman explained. “It really changes the texture. It’s very soft and tender, I would say, because it’s falling off the bone.”

Triana’s wine list, made up predominantly of Spanish wines, was curated by Boardman to not only complement the food, but also to satisfy a variety of tastes.

“What I tried to do was develop a very balanced portfolio of wines that suit a bunch of a lot of different palates,” he explained. “But also, frankly, just deliver the biggest value for the money ... And aside from my own palate, I really relied on third party ratings like Vivino ... We’ve really worked not so much to accommodate my palate but really more to just deliver really good value like really highly rated wine, the best wine, the best rated wine in a certain price point.”

Sherry flights ($12) are available for guests who are curious about the fortified wine.

“I think for a lot of people it’s not well known, it’s not well explored,” Boardman said of sherry. “A lot of people my age have memories of really poor quality sherry when they were probably too young to appreciate it. I just love the authenticity of sherry ... It pairs well with food. That’s the biggest thing with sherry, it’s just great to pair with a wide array of different foods. There’s a lot of different styles of sherry.”

Triana also offers Spanish vermuts ($8).

“The vermuts are from all over Spain, the reds and the whites,” Boardman said. “In Spain, they’re sort of almost either an aperitif because they’re relatively low alcohol or drunk earlier in the day. A lot of people have vermut for lunch. They have a whole array of different spices, and it’s a fun taste experience that is fairly low in alcohol and very compatible with food.”

Happy Hour at Triana allows patrons to try some of the restaurant’s food and drink offerings at a discounted price from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. The $5 Tapas Specials include the Patatas Bravas, Pan con Tomate featuring grilled bread and muddled tomatoes, and Berenjena con Melaza made up of deep-fried eggplant with pomegranate molasses.

The $5 Drink Special items are your choice of white or red sangria by the glass or pitcher ($18), select cavas and wines, select beer, and the Triana Margarita, made with reposado tequila, vermut rojo, and sweetened lime juice.

The space where Triana is located, previously housed Boardman’s former taqueria El Cotorro. He upgraded the spot to create an atmosphere more consistent with Nob Hill’s vibe.

“I would say it is sort of casual minimalism,” he explained. “I really worked on the color palette. We’re doing all warm, mostly warm grays, and then a little bit brighter, warm tones in the interior. We’ve got our main dining room and then we’ve got a nice waiting area. We have the bar that I totally remodeled with white grid shelving that has all of our wines. You can sit there at the bar and see every bottle of wine ... And then on the patio, when it was El Cotorro, it was always sloped, and just aesthetically that kind of bugged me. So I did a series of terraces on a level surface, and there are three of them.”

Boardman, who spent 30 years working in commercial real estate, knows a thing or two about restaurants. His first restaurant, Tia Betty Blue’s, which serves New Mexican fare, opened in 2010. He later opened Tia B’s La Waffleria that specializes in sweet and savory versions of waffles.

Most of Boardman’s time is currently spent serving as a host at Triana.

“I seat people and I really enjoy it,” he said. “I love the interaction. It’s almost like biochemical. I mean, you can’t greet 100 people a night and smile and have a nice conversation with each of them, and not come home feeling pretty good.”