The Tapas Tree Restaurant, Walmgate, York

TAPAS, says a copy of the printed menu pasted up inside the window of the recently-opened Tapas Tree restaurant in Walmgate, originated in Spain. It evolved from "very simple dishes offered by a bar's patron to sustain his drinkers. The more the patron gave them to eat, the more his customers wanted to drink. Clever patron."

Clever marketing, too. Such a description evokes a vivid image of Spain. You can just imagine the cool, well-lit bar, heat beating in from the whitewashed street outside, and taste the spicy Spanish offerings the drinkers are being tempted with. The digestive juices start working even before you walk through Tapas Tree's door.

Inside, it is no disappointment. The music was a little poppy, even if it was Ricky Martin. But the rough-hewn, stripped wood tables, bare wood floor and splashes of flamboyant colour - greens and reds - on the walls gave it an authentically Spanish feel, to someone who's never been to Spain, at least. I half expected to see Ernest Hemingway sitting at the next table.

For Tapas first-timers, the helpful menus handed to us by manager Jean Pierre Noret even went so far as to explain how to order. The idea isn't to have a traditional starter and main course. It is to order a selection of small dishes - all priced at £3 - to share, ordering more as and when you want.

Informality is the name of the game. "I always look at my customers as friends," Jean Pierre told my colleague Chris Titley, when the restaurant opened last month in the building previously occupied by Loucedes Tapas. "A restaurant works if you treat them as if you were entertaining them in your own home," he added.

Hemingway would have approved. And while we didn't exactly feel as if we were in Jean Pierre's front room, my dining companion Shu Xiao and I felt pretty relaxed, pretty quickly.

We ordered drinks - house medium white for me, apple juice for Shu Xiao - then nibbled at a bowl of tortilla chips with roasted red pepper puree dip (tasty without exactly setting the taste buds on fire) while we pondered the range of tapas dishes on offer.

It was while studying the menu that the first faint alarm bells began to ring. There were salad tapas, seafood tapas and 'the rest' - tapas not suitable for vegetarians. And while many of them looked authentically Spanish or at least continental - Albondigas con Salsa de Tomate rolls off the tongue delightfully - others, deep fried brie and chicken Huntingdon among them, clearly weren't. Were we in for a bit of a watered-down experience, I began to wonder?

We ordered, five dishes between us to start with, to be on the safe side. From the salad menu, I chose the vine leaves stuffed with rice and pine kernels and served with sour cream. And then, from the part of the menu labelled 'the rest', we chose the Albondigas (beef meatballs, seasoned with basil and garlic and served in a tomato sauce); the Fabada con Chorizo, a traditional Spanish stew made with spicy chorizo sausages, ham, and fabada beans; the Patatas Bravas, potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce and ribs.

We didn't have to wait long, even though the restaurant was filling up rapidly. Our selection was placed before us, each in a small earthenware bowl. They looked good: but when it came to taste - well, frankly, they were a little disappointing.

The vine leaves were cold (as to be expected) but had a texture that seemed greasy, even if it wasn't. And the rice and pine kernel stuffing was bland. Only the sour cream livened it up: but not enough to make it memorable. The ribs were OK, though nothing to write home about, and the Patatas Bravas, despite their spicy-sounding Spanish name, were actually little more than thick, soft chips smothered in a hot tomato sauce.

Only the Albondigas and the Fabada raised the temperature a little. The spicy beef meatballs were tasty in a way quite different from any English dish - and the fabada stew was plain delicious. But then, you can't go wrong with a chorizo stew. Nothing on God's earth could make a chorizo sausage tasteless.

I love the whole concept of tapas. It's a great way to eat. But with the Tapas Tree I honestly don't believe you're getting the authentic experience. It feels like part of a franchise chain - which is precisely what it is. It may not be the McDonalds of the tapas world - but at the very best it's the Pierre Victoire.

The saddest thing of all is I have it on good authority that the Loucedes Tapas, which was here before, was the genuine article; fiery Spanish food cooked the way it should be.

Our meal for two, including drinks and coffee for one, came to a whisker short of £25. Not bad value - but, for what should be a cheap and cheerful way of eating, not great, either.

Food: disapointing

Service: friendly

Value: reasonable

Ambience: Hemingway

No disabled access

- The Tapas Tree Restaurant, Walmgate, York, telephone 01904 674848.

18/08/01