With share plates, a sense of conviviality and a relaxed attitude, it’s the perfect cuisine to try at home. There’s just one hitch. Where to begin? And, more importantly, with a hoard of hungry mouths on the way, where can we find everything for that authentic tapas experience?

“Tortilla is a great place to start,” says Frank Camorra. “There are lots of variations you find all over Spain… just vary the ingredients, like with salt cod or chorizo.” Camorra is quite an authority on the subject. The head chef and brains behind Melbourne’s acclaimed tapas bar, MoVida (and the new addition to the family, MoVida Next Door), he was born in Barcelona and spent his formative years in Cordoba. He’s also largely responsible for Melbourne’s newfound love affair with Spanish food and the idea of tapas.

“Tapas varies from place to place, region to region. Generally it’s a way of sharing food and a social way of eating – trying lots of flavours and socialising while you eat,” he says. “And the sizes of the dishes vary too; they can be small or large. At MoVida, we structure it as tapas being a single serve, and racion as a larger dish for sharing. There are no real rules.”

It might be a flexible style of cuisine when it comes to serving sizes, but we want to know where to shop for the specific tools, utensils and specialty items that’ll make your next attempt at cooking paella more authentic.

Camorra points us in the direction of Melbourne’s one-stop Spanish shop, Casa Iberica. Located on Johnston Street in Fitzroy, the place is a tapas wonderland. There are shelves lined with rice for every kind of recipe, a deli counter displaying terracotta bowls of glistening Spanish olives and every kind of small good from chorizo to jamón.

“It’s all there,” assures Camorra, “from the stuff my mum cooks with, to more fancy specialty items... Spanish food isn't like Italian, where you can find great delis everywhere; it’s still relatively limited. So Casa Iberica is the best place to start.”

Matt McConnell, head chef of Bar Lourinha – Melbourne’s other Iberian icon – agrees: “Casa Iberica is definitely one of the best,” he says. “I’ve been shopping there for over 20 years and it doesn’t change.”

McConnell and Camorra also direct me to Casa Iberica for that tapas deli favourite, jamón. “Some butchers will have it,” says Camorra, “and it is worth having a look, but Iberica has the best range.”

McConnell explains that buying jamón will present you with a bit of a dilemma. “The problem is that we can only import jamón off the bone,” he says, “so all the imported, or proper Spanish jamón is already off the bone. Australian varieties are still on the bone, and on the bone is better, in theory. It holds its flavour. So you just have to get familiar with it. Taste the product, get to know it. It is hard to go past Spanish, but do try the local. It’s hard to replicate the authenticity here, when Spanish producers have been doing it for hundreds of years… but at least we have people who are trying it.”

Casa Iberica clearly comes with strong recommendation, but it isn’t the only place to pick up tapas components. The Essential Ingredient in South Yarra is a good option for those south of the river. “They stock really good rice and paprika,” says McConnell, “and so does Simon Johnson (in Fitzroy). They both stock excellent olives and olive oils from Spain and Australia.” Camorra also points to The Essential Ingredient for excellent sherry vinegar.

And when it comes to indispensable ingredients, McConnell claims that, while saffron is a cliché, paprika and garlic are the heart and soul of Spanish cooking – “sweet or smoked, not Hungarian – it’s just not the same thing,” he says.

“You need really good paprika,” reinforces Camorra. “Smoked paprika is utilised in a lot of different dishes and in different ways. It’s like dashi (soup stock) to the Japanese or parmesan to Italians.”