When it’s cold, dark and miserable, the country is lurching from one crisis to the next and you’re tempted to burrow under your Tekla duvet and never come out, an excellent new Spanish restaurant arrives to remind you that yes, we can have nice things. This is not the first rodeo for Maresco’s team, having opened Bar Esteban in Crouch End in 2013 followed by Stoke Newington’s Escocesa – but the Soho site has a tighter focus on seafood than its siblings.

“I’m a sucker for Scottish seafood so practically sprinted into Maresco’s industrial-feel ground floor and onto a stool overlooking the open kitchen,” says Stylist Loves editor Gemma Crisp. “Downstairs has tables for groups but if you’re a duo, the stools are where the action is. For the fish-averse, Spanish classics such as heaving pan con tomate and unctuous sobrassada croquettas will hit the spot, and don’t skip the charcoal cauliflower with mojo verde and pomegranate or charcoal leeks with romesco – I could have bathed in the delicious sauces. But with halibut, razor clams, oysters, boquerones, calamari and salmon on the menu, it’s a seafood lover’s nirvana – even the txistorra sausage is made of monkfish and mackerel. The window tables looking onto Soho’s bustle are the perfect spot to tuck into fideuà with langoustine while ordering another gin, basil, lime, elderflower and cucumber Kimbala cocktail and counting down the days to summer.” 45 Berwick St, London, W1F