Rogelio

Ok, let's face it this other way: -Paco Gandía (aka Casa Paco): Pinoso, Alicante -Mesón Juan Peña: Córdoba -Bodega Casa Montaña: Valencia -Yalde: Astigarraga Guipúzcoa -Alhucemas: Sanlúcar La Mayor, Sevilla -FM: Granada -Hermanos Tomas: Barcelona -Casa Rios: ? -La Quadra: Macanet de Cabrenys, Gerona -Sacha: Madrid -Inopia: Barcelona -Nou Manolin: Alicante -Bar Juan Frau: Palma de Mallorca -Casa Gerardo: Prendes, Asturias -Rafas: Roses, Gerona -Etxebarri: Atxondo, Vizcaya -Pizzeria Fabián Martín: Llivia, Girona -Sanghay: Barcelona -Kaia: Guetaria, Guipuzcoa -El Campero: Barbate, Cádiz

I'm afraid that Sacha is the only madrileñian restaurant in the list.

Two weeks ago, La Vanguardia weekend magazine asked top spanish chefs about their favourite restaurants. This are the answers: -Paco Gandía (Casa Paco) ( Berasategui y Subijana) -Mesón Juan Peña ( Dani García) -Bodega Casa Montaña ( Quique Dacosta) -Yalde ( Aduriz) -Alhucemas ( Adría) -FM ( Quique Dacosta) -Hermanos Tomas ( Santamaría). -Casa Rios ( Santamaría). -La Quadra ( Ruscalleda). -Sacha ( Arola) -Inopia ( Arzak) -Nou Manolin ( Santamaría) -Bar Juan Frau ( Adría). -Casa Gerardo ( Santamaría) -Rafas ( Adriá) -Etxebarri ( Subijana y Roca). -Pizzeria Fabián Martín ( Adriá). -Sanghay ( Adría). -Kaia ( Berasategui) -El Campero ( Dani García). No fireworks here, just the simplest and best product. well but Adrà who was original at least.

FM in Granada would play on the same league.

This are sun dried red peppers. Check the end of this thread

After all the talk, gossip, articles, etc. It seems that everybody's using the common sense and starts talking about what Philippe Regol calls the third way, ie, creative cooking using the modern techniques but based on the product. I for myself,believe in this middle of the road way between traditionalists and ultra modernists.

I have last summer's menu in my hands and the surprise menu is 95€ plus 7% VAT.

If you're looking forward to try ibérico ham you should want to give a try to Jamonísimo. And if you want traiditional cooking don't miss Hispania in Arenys de Mar.

My favourite restaurant in the area is Alameda in Fuenmayor. And in Laguardia proper, Marixa is a nice traditional place.

My vote goes for fino or manzanilla, but those with a long crianza. Inocente or Pastrana would be my choices.

For those of you who can read spanish here is a blog where you can see some of the presentations.

I can only answer to this last question, and he does it creating a perfume that starts smelling like a candy and ends smelling like liquorice. The purpose of the candies is to show the present that he sents to every costumer just after doing the reservation at his restaurant. It includes candies that are not whoat they look like, the orange one tastes like chocolate and the brown one like orange, there is also a candy whoese envelop is also edible... When you arrive to his restaurant the semell at the entrance is the same on of the perfume, so you are familiar with that and enter into a restaurant as surprising as a candy shop. Or that's what he says.

Just in case that you haven't done it yet after reading Pedro's post. This is to leave you salivating. Here's the kid:

Bux was my godfather here on eG and I'm still shocked about the news. Esilda sent me an email yesterday and I can not forget the times we spent together eating, discussing and enjoying life. Bux was generous with his friends and trully passionate about food and life. Rest in peace, Bux.

I was yesterday afternoon at Madrid Fusión, my main purpose was to attend a biodinamic wines tasting conducted by Nicolas Joly with 50 other producers from Italy, France, Spain, Slovenia, Austria... I could also see a few conferences like the one by Blue Hill's Dan Barber who spoke about how to create your own restaurant farm. Dan has just published a very thoughtful article at NYT about the agricultural policy in the States and his conference was about this and the future of food in a globalized world. He also made a sous-vide lamb. This year's main them is the product and the future of the product in the gastronomy as oposed to previows years when innovation was the main purpose reaching the top when Hoamro Cantu made his edible fotocopy. So Dan's conference was one of the main points during the congress. Pedro Morán and his son, from Casa Gerardo made an interesting exibition around the fabes (Asturian beans) explaining that there are more choices than a fabada with them, specially with the fresh ones. They made pop corns with the bean skin, an smooth ajoblanco with fresh beans and of course a fabada. I don't know if I will come back but will report if I do.

I guess that this is because Miguel Sanchez Romera doesn't want to appear on any guide and has asked to be deleted from all the guides.

We ate at El Churrasco earlier this year. I found the meal to be just ok. We ordered the salmorejo and, after eating it, noticed that all the Spaniards in the room had ordered it with what looked like fried potatoes. Wish I had known that before I ordered, as I think it would have been tastier. ← That was not fried potatoes but deep fried aubergines another traditional Cordoba dish.

Indeed, a good lomo is as good or even better than a good ham. Yes, ibérico sausages, chorizo, salchichón... are pricier and better than normal ones. I have just finished a whole chorizo from Joselito that almost left me crying. And the iberico meat cuts like sirloin, loin, secreto, presa, pluma... Are a notch over any white pig cuts. You'd better come back to taste and prove it.

I'm glad to see all these spanish chefs cooking there and not only the superstars but also the very important keeper of the traditional essences, the ones like Benissano's Rafael Vidal or Alhucemas' Miguel Palomo whos cooking is as important (or even more because there are more people eating paellas and fried fish than foams and nitropopcorns) than the top notch chefs. Well done Doc.

Nouvelle cuisine ... the revenge of the pastry chefs? Would someone please explain? And did it work ... for the pastry chefs? ← Guèrard started as a pastry chef and then went to the salted dishes with the spirit of a pastry chef with all th measurements and timing concepts. And so did other nouvelle cuisine chefs. Did they succeed? Well, every single recipe that you read nowadays is measured to the gram and the temperatures and timing are exacts.

This was said in the way that Blumenthal hasn't claim to discover other people discoverings and that he dates and adresses every dish. As well as Adrià does. I think that Adrià is tired of seeing the same fake dishes all over the world claimed to be discovered by different chefs.

The most interesting event at the Lo Mejor de la Gastronomía Congress, at least for the aficionado, was the debate between cooks and critics from both times discussing about the boundaries of the cooking, the future and the history. At the table were Gualterio Marchesi, Jean-Claude Ribaut (Le Monde), Vincent Noce (Liberation), Jürgen Dollase (ZDF Magazine), Michel Guèrard, Heston Blumenthal, Ferrán Adrià, Marco Bolasco (Gambero Rosso) and Giles Coren (The Times). And was moderated by Rafael García Santos, organizer of the congres. Jürgen Dollase opened saying the the actual cooking wasn't a revolution not even the nouvelle cuisinne. The only revolutions tha has happened have been: - Killing the animals - Cutting the food - Aromatization - Texture variation - Culinary constructions And said that as much as he liked Adrià's cooking and innovations he thoght that he should stop now, and develop the art of eating. Gualterio Marchesi said that cooks need to know the technic first in order to innovate as a music needs to know how to play before improvising. And explained that he loved the product and needed to giving it an added value. Vincent Noce was more vehement starting from the historic factas that if we were alwais eating the same we will die and the gastronomie has to choose between repetition, variation and variety. And ended claiming that there has to be a disturbating sensation on every great meal as the art is a message of pleasure and love to the world. Jean Claude Ribot hold the intelectual role saying that gastronomie need to be asociated to the pleasure and explaining that like the civilizations without memory died of cold the countries without gastronomie didn't know the pleasure. And claimed that the new discoveries and studies in the cooking process were destruying the cooking. Marco Bolasco said that cooking was son of a context and now the cook is the principal character after moving the Maitre d'. Ferrán Adrià took then the lead role saying that this was the first time that everything had been dated with rigurosity and the debate now was when did the nouvelle cuisine started and if still exists. Adrià thought that we are not under a revolution because there is no rupture between then and now as there is a big respect and flattery for all the previous generation and people are much over the countries. Jürgen said then that the most important revolution was that there is now an emancipation from the old technics. Michel Guèrard explained that when he started there wasn't a freedom of interpretation of recipes and the nouvelle cuisine wasn't based in filosofical criteria but the revange of the pastry chefs against the traditional cooks. But the most important fact was starting setting the dishes at the kitchen to avoid the waiters destruying their works. The funniest thing is that all his revolution in the dietetic cooking was due to pick up a girl (his actual wife) as she was the owner of a resting resort. Ferrán Adrià ended saying that the vanguard needs to be excesive because if there isn't polemic there isn't vanguard. But the main thing was to be honest with you and your collegues being Blumenthal the best example of honestity. All in all was a very interesting debate that may have needed two or three hours to show all the points and posibilities.

Judiones de la granja are much bigger and thicker than fabes and the later are thinner and softer. Take a look at this site. I've heard that there are now lots of fake fabes from South America. To differ them you have to take a fistful and tighten and if they escape they are the false ones.

fabada is a tricky dish, it is not that easy to cook a good one, the fabes need to be very fresh (the new harvest has just arrived) and the water is also very important. Never cook them with hard waters. I've just arrived from eating a good one at Asturianos, in fact I've eated three different fabes dishes , and they try not to stir at all.