Popular Spanish restaurant FOC opens Casa Lola at Telok Ayer, vibey diner inspired by Barcelona bodegas
Anyone who enjoys Spanish food would be familiar with FOC Restaurant — the stalwart restaurant opened in 2014, and even has a beachside sibling concept in Sentosa.
It has been seeing quite a few milestones in recent times.
Last year, it moved from its long-time Hongkong Street home to a new location in Keong Saik and this year, the team opened a new restaurant, Casa Lola.
The new casual restaurant can be found at Telok Ayer, near popular spots such as Sarnies, and it’s impossible to miss with its striking blue-and-orange facade.
Inside, the decor is also kept simple and rustic, and the walls are filled up with posters and picture frames.
It’s meant to be relaxed and cosy, since it draws inspiration from Barcelona’s many small bodegas.
The restaurant feels very appropriately homely, since this concept is co-founded by a husband-and-wife duo: Chef Juanjo Carrillo and hospitality maestro Marcela Pino!
Inspired by Barcelona bodegas
As with all FOC Group restaurants, Casa Lola excels at simplicity and heartiness — Spanish food is often about simplicity, after all.
But the cooking is not without pizzazz. One sleek creation is the smoked Cantabrico anchovies with foie gras ganache & brioche (S$16 for two pieces).
The name is enough for you to imagine the depth of this little flavour bomb, where decadently punchy anchovies are beautifully married to foie gras ganache, which is both sweet and umami-loaded.
Continuing down the route of exuberant flavours, we highly recommend getting one of the huevos rotos.
Huevos rotos, which combines handcut Agria fried potato chips with a free-range fried egg, is not a common Spanish delicacy here in Singapore.
At Casa Lola, this Spanish dish is served in three permutations, but the king prawns “al ajillo” rich garlic sauce (S$32) version is undoubtedly a must-order.
The staff cut into the egg and mix everything up tableside, which allows the jammy yolk and intoxicatingly fragrant garlic sauce to emulsify and coat the chips nicely.
Between the yolk-sauce coating, luscious prawns, crunchy potato chips, and silky egg whites, this dish is a delectable mix of textures.
Amping up the flavours even further, Casa Lola’s crispy suckling pig deboned with roasted apple & pumpkin (S$36) is a good choice on occasions you are craving something fattier.
Most Spanish places require you to order at least a quarter or half suckling pig, but Casa Lola offers it adequately portioned for a solo eater — something much more manageable for smaller groups, or if you’re looking to try more of the menu.
It hits all the notes of a good Spanish suckling pig, with crackling skin and a bit of nice fattiness — the roasted apple and pumpkin on the side also cuts through the heft quite handily!
Next, the paella, something most diners look forward to when they visit Spanish restaurants.
Casa Lola doesn’t stick to one variant. Instead, it serves a seasonal paella (price varies) that changes based on seasonality — with ingredients including truffles and Iberico pork — that sits around the S$38 to S$68 range.
On our visit, the seasonal paella was seafood-focused, with seafood stock used for its base and topped with juicy Spanish Carabinero prawns and squid.
All paellas here use a premium rice specially sourced from Molino Roca, a century-old rice miller in Valencia.
It’s a very solid paella, cooked nicely with a good ratio of soccarat (the crunchy burnt bits), and comes packed with oodles of richness.
Also, we cannot overstate how important it is that you don’t leave without an order of the Spanish creamy flan caramel with chantilly (S$14).
Flan is a dish that is usually quite straightforward, but we think Casa Lola does it as perfectly as it gets: The flan is toasty and fragrant, with a mouthfeel that is velvety and almost melt-in-mouth.
Casa Lola is not reinventing the wheel, but the homely ambience and solid execution makes us think the FOC Group has another potential crowd-favourite on their hands.
This was a hosted tasting.
For more ideas on what to eat, read our stories on the viral noodle bar at Telok Ayer and the new Korean samgyetang specialist at Novena.
Wed 12pm - 3pm, 5pm - 10pm
Thu 12pm - 3pm, 5pm - 10pm
Fri 12pm - 3pm, 5pm - 10pm
Sat 12pm - 3pm, 5pm - 10pm
- Telok Ayer
Evan started off writing about food on Instagram, before joining outlets such as Buro and Confirm Good to pursue his passion. His best work usually comes after his first whisky shot in the morning.
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