Alresford is one of those words that reminds me of a South African friend of my father who came to London in the ’50s and tried to find Grosvenor Square. Unaware that the ‘s’ was silent and using his quite determined and fiercely enunciated SA accent, he walked the streets asking people for ‘Gross-venor Square’ without luck. But then, how was he to know? Like how is anyone to know that Towcester is pronounced ‘toaster’? We traditional English are sticklers for accuracy, quick to laugh at those who get it wrong.

Although I feel I must part company with those – no matter how accurate – who see the v in Daventry as silent, rhyming the word with ‘plain tree’. If I was in that neck of the woods and I asked the way there in that manner I’d probably get my head kicked in.

Anyway, so I travel to Hampshire’s ‘Ulf-ford’ to look for a tapas place called Pulpo Negro and, to cut to the quick, so should you. It’s a place of feverishly fabulous endeavour. You get that vibe the moment you walk in.

Inside the white-fronted restaurant on a handsome and wide avenue is an L-shaped room of a good blend of bare brick, grey paint and industrial, yellowy lighting. There’s an open kitchen behind a tiled bar, with what I thought was an impressive number of chefs toiling in a small restaurant in a modest Hampshire town. There were a good few waiting staff as well, which all added to the bustle. As did the fact that every table was full.

We had a fabulous waiter in Lidiya, who struck the perfect balance between explaining dishes and enthusing about them. I say this having recently eaten in a new London restaurant where the waiter spoke of every dish with great fluency, showing a deep understanding of the traditions of the cuisine presented, but also describing their astonishing fabulousness… All fine, except that the food was uniquely awful. Watch this space…

Pulpo Negro, meanwhile, is beautifully entrenched in the spirit of great tapas, offering also a well-measured wine list and an impressive array of sherries.