Popular Chinatown bakery transforms into tapas bar

Sweets Raku, a French Japanese bakery, closed last June after 10 years of chestnut cream cakes on Spring Mountain Road in Chinatown; staffing challenges reportedly contributed to the closing.

Casa de Raku, a Spanish tapas place, quietly debuted in the same space over the holidays. Mitsuo Endo, owner of both and a James Beard Award finalist, had always wanted to open a Spanish tapas spot, which now joins two Japanese siblings, Aburiya Raku and Toridokoro Raku, in Endo’s restaurant portfolio.

Wine bottles racked behind glass mark the entrance to Casa de Raku. Around the corner stretches a narrow railroad-style dining room, with brick accents, dark woods and rich leather. Banquette seating lies to one side, bar stools with glassware overhead to the other; behind the bar, a leg of jamón Ibérico (the essential Spanish ham) awaits slicing. A chalkboard menu mantles one wall.

“When people walk in, we want it to feel like they’re walking in from the streets of San Sebastián,” said Cameron Mackintosh-Stewart, general manager of the restaurant, referring to the famed beach town in the Spanish Basque country.

“We want people to feel like they’re with friends, feeling at home.”

Bites and bites

Pintxos (pinchos) — small snacks, in Basque — headline the menu: crusty ovals of bread variously crowned. There is pan con tomate, its swath of tomato somehow bright and fresh in January; parchment-thin slices of jamón add lush fat and gentle salt.

Quenelles of egg salad, crab salad, and tuna salad with a Spanish pepper form other toppings. A seared foie gras pintxo is spattered with Ishikawa rock salt held in a small wooden bowl. Small wooden boxes, resembling tall sake cups, hold cocktail forks, cocktail spoons and miniature cleavers for tackling pintxos or other dishes.

The pintxos are cleanly and precisely fashioned, almost like nigiri, in that space where presentation previews flavor.

Although the restaurant is thoroughly Spanish, the wooden vessels and rock salt and the crafting of pintxos are among the Japanese accents at Casa de Raku, perhaps unsurprising given its predecessor and its two Japanese siblings in the Raku group.

Spain meets Japan

Jamón Ibérico (sliced straight from the leg), prosciutto di Parma and a Spanish blue cheese anchor the charcuterie spread. The cheese is made from the milk of the Payoya goat of Andalucia.

“It’s a very rare type of goat,” Mackintosh-Stewart said. “It’s quite a hard product to get; it’s very special to Spain. It’s a lot milder than traditional French blue cheese.”

Casa de Raku takes up appetizers with patatas bravas; the yolk of a poached egg binds the potatoes and jamón. Croquetas stuffed with potatoes and jamón are swaddled in panko, then deep-fried. The pillowy croquetas are like a cloud with crunch.

Flicks of Ishikawa salt sharpen the octopus (pulpo) in garlic-white wine sauce. Striploin steak from an Oregon producer, aged 28 days, receives grace notes of truffle oil.

And then there is a signature dish, the Ibérico katsu, featuring panko-crusted Ibérico tenderloin served with a brushstroke of katsu sauce, a jot of French mustard and a tangle of microgreens. Slice the katsu with one of the small cleavers.

“It’s a classic Spanish ingredient for a classic Japanese dish,” Mackintosh-Stewart said.

Cheese whiz

Casa de Raku goes through a leg of jamón Ibérico a month. A dear ingredient is made even dearer because only about 40 percent of the leg can be used for the menu, which changes once a month.

The sherries (a classic pintxos adjutant) and the nicely edited selection of Spanish wines also repay exploration. You might finish the evening with a slice of Basque cheesecake mixing cream cheese and manchego cheese. A flurry of grated manchego tops the dessert; the grated cheese is milder than when it’s sliced.

It’s yet one more detail in a restaurant resplendent with details that make the meal and the mood.

Contact Johnathan L. Wright at jwright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @JLWTaste on Instagram and @ItsJLW on X.