Booyah!

Brunch With a Spanish Twist

By Lizzie Wilcox

January 2019

If you wake up Sunday morning and crave authentic Spanish cuisine and a new spin on sangria, then call the Uber for Bulla Gastrobar, the downtown restaurant inspired by Madrid’s tapas scene.  

During a recent visit, we failed to make a reservation so sat at the bar. Not a bad option, since we had direct access to the most important person, the bartender. Instead of flagging our waiter and sending him to place the order, we were handed another sangria approximately 37 seconds after sucking down the first one.  

For $19, Bulla offers bottomless mimosas and three different types of sangria. The traditional red wine sangria, a white wine sangria, and a beer sangria. Our suggestion? The beer sangria. It may sound weird, but trust us on this. La Rubia beer, elderflower liqueur, lemon juice and pear purée, garnished with mint leaves and tiny orange slices, come together to make a light, refreshing weekend morning drink, the perfect hangover cure. 

To soak up the cocktails, Bulla has a $27 three-course menu. Come hungry, because each course is essentially an entrée. For the first course, we tried the Coca – a flatbread made with Mahón cheese, quail eggs, bacon caramelized onions and mushrooms. Pizza for breakfast? It has eggs and bacon, so it counts. For the second course, it was a toss-up between the Bulla Burger and chicken with waffles. The bartender tilted us toward the burger, topped with piquillo peppers, caramelized onions and tetilla cheese. Good choice. And because life is too short, we got the churros and the hazelnut waffles for the third course. It wasn’t humanly possible to finish everything, but the wait staff graciously brought us about six take-home boxes.  

Luckily brunch is from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., so you have five hours to chow down all that food. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.