As the Ides of March bears down, pressing the winter to settle its seasonal debt, we consider the payment overdue. Cities in the north are still bitter places—stinging and sluggish until fully thawed. But hope springs eternal, even while visiting the silver chill of London. We seek a brighter palette and warmer days by a crosstown jaunt.

Transport for London’s Northern Line delivers travelers to brilliant locations on both sides of the Thames. Surfacing in Soho, we pass artist Daniel Buren’s colorful shapes and monochrome stripes en route to Barrafina, grabbing glasses of briny Godello while we wait for coveted stools at the counter. The Galician wine is a breakfast grapefruit eaten off a slate slab: tart, minerally, mouthwatering. A cured pig’s leg suspended on a jamonera taunts us and the scent of sizzling seafood accelerates appetites. We are awash in memories of Spain.

This Dean Street bar is a slick reconception of Catalonian standards like Barcelona’s famed Cal Pep, serving tapas classics from an open kitchen: blistery pimientos de Padrón; banderilla skewers of olives, pickled pimientos, anchovy, and quail egg dressed with fragrant oil; and fuet de Catalunya, a thin dried sausage seasoned with black pepper, garlic, and anise. Chef Angel Zapata Martin revamps, too, pushing fennel salad to new levels, elevating color and flavor with radishes, pears, and dill. Pulpo marinates in its own liquor, sprinkled with capers, chive, and pimentón. It melts away with each bite.

Submerged in the tube until Southwark, we ascend the next day in search of Andalucía. José Pizarro’s first Bermondsey Street venture, José, shifts diners to Spain’s southern coast through deceptively simple dishes. Pan con tomate harvests the energy of a summer garden, using only its namesake: bread, tomato, olive oil, salt. The secret is quality ingredients, and rubbing. Gordal olives and crispy patatas bravas share scale, the latter unified by silken mayonnaise and a scarlet puree that cuts the starch. Txakolina by the bottle and we’ve come so far into spring, so quickly—only tracks between us.

3/14/2019