Tapas on Market opens Thursday in Fort Mill’s Baxter Village, with executive chef Nicolas Daniels in the kitchen. The restaurant will be a traditional tapas restaurant, which Daniels is quite familiar with, given his former experience as the opening chef at Barcelona Wine Bar in South End, and previously Loft & Cellar and The Wooden Vine. 

Menu items include croquettes, snapper crudo, burrata, pan con tomate, and other vegetarian, seafood, and meat-based small plates. Daniels says the menu is focused on simple flavors and good food, creating an atmosphere for diners to come and sit and relax a while. Dishes will be sourced from area farms.

“We’re focusing on local in two different ways: sourcing what we can locally,” Daniels says. “The other thing, which I’m really happy about, is we’re trying to pay a living wage to everybody.”

All cooks will be salaried employees, allowing them to receive a week of vacation time as well as sick leave.

To pair with the restaurant’s shared plates menu is a small but well-selected wine list, all available by the bottle or glass. The wines-by-the-glass list includes eight Coravin pours, with higher end bottles such as Orin Swift’s Slander and Silver Oak cabernet sauvignon. Tapas on Market will also serve cocktails and beer.

Before joining the Tapas on Market team, Daniels was training at Capital Grille — owned by the same group as Barcelona Wine Bar. Following the restaurant shutdown due to Covid-19, Daniels broke his leg while mountain biking. After two months of medical leave, he had to step down from his position at Capital Grille or risk his recovery with 10 to 12 hour days in the kitchen. 

Now fully healed, he takes the position as executive chef at Tapas on Market. Expansion plans are already in the works for Tapas on Market and a sister concept, with Daniels hoping to grow to corporate executive chef as more restaurants open. See the restaurant’s full menu here.

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