Combarro in madrid

[vmilor]

I am generally quite reluctant to praise a restaurant I have only been once and esp. a seafood restaurant. Some of the best seafood is perishable and usually regulars eat better. More than once I have been very disappointed in some seafood temples praised by people I trust, such as Carletto in Bordighera Italy. They simply did not serve me their best.

This said, I will go out on a limb and heap praise on this place. IMO they tie with Lorenzo of Forte dei Marmi in terms of quality and execution of fish and shellfish. They have 2 locations in Madrid and I tried the one on Ortega Gasset. I doubt there is a difference in quality though.

I ran into this place accidentally. We were on our way to La Trainera and noticed the display of angulas, percebes, camarones, aragosta, sea bass and hake on the display window. We started a heated conversation with my wife about the excellence of Galician seafood and the unfortunate accident of the tanker spill (I should rather say, me heated and she calm), and a passerby, a rotund very friendly looking middle aged man accompanied by a younger person(who turned out to be his son), intervened to ask if he could be of some help. I first thought he was an American because to my ear he did not have an accent--at any rate he did not have as a strong accent in English as I do. It turned out that he was a Galician who lived in Puerto Rico but was a regular visitor to Madrid. And the man knew his fish. He even had tasted Turkish black sea turbot in the right season(which is different and at least as good as Atlantic turbot) and he explained to me some fine points on Galician shellfish that I did not know. Under the bewildered gaze of my wife and his son we exchanged stories and talked about the merits of various seafood for at least 30 minutes. Then somehow one of us awoke from the dream and noticed that we were not alone. "Well, I said, we were on our way to Trainera and I noticed the display here. But I know the trick. This is the bait and the frozen stuff is inside, is not it?".

Well, he said, Trainera is very good but I like Combarro even more. He added: I don't think they are tricky and they are my favorite in Madrid.

Coming from this gentleman this was high praise, more important for me than Mr. RGS rating(which, I learned later that gives 7) or a Michelin rosette which tends to underrate seafood places.

And he--I still do not know his name--was right on target. The camarones I had there were the best I had ever tried, very firm and almost sweet without the sharp iode taste that prawns develop 2 or 3 days after they have been caught. I knew that scallops were good this year and they had liked the summer heat but nothing had prepared me for the deep sweetness and firmness of the big scallops served in their shells a la gallega(with sweet braised onions, bits of bacon and a little tomato). The percebes had the pure taste of rocks and ocean. The 2 cigalas(langostines) we ordered, two thirds of a pound each, prepared a la plancha, made me think that I liked this better than the superlative preparation at ADPA with caviar and a light lemon infused cream sauce. It is just that only Pacaud has access to this quality langoustines in Paris but then Pacaud is a Breton and he charges 3 times or so more.

I committed one error. Since we had a La Broche app. the same night I did not want to try the wild rock sea bass recommended by very friendly and professional maitre d' Senor Alvaro Lopez Garcia. But I had a peek at the belon oysters, angulas, and whole fish preparations going to the other 3 tables in the small room that we ate. I could not help but fake going to toilet to have a closer look at the dishes and plan future feasts.

I should also mention that the pacing of the service was perfect and the small rooms are exquisitely decorated.

In retrospect, I am quite angry with myself that I did not fully splurge there as La Broche turned out to be disappointing, and Arola is certainly not in the same league with Santamaria, Berasategui and Arbelaitz. More on this in a future posting...

[vserna]

Well, vmilor, you're now privy to a Madrid restaurant specialty: that of being the most 'mis-rated' city in Europe in the Michelin guide. In another thread I recently referred to Combarro (and I was thinking specifically of the newer Ortega y Gasset branch) as "probably the most spectacular seafood place anywhere right now – I’ve seen wine writer Stephen Tanzer almost swoon over tiny ‘camarón’ shrimp there..." I'd say Combarro and, in a different style, O'Pazo (the roast turbot with just its juices and a drop of sherry vinegar as accompaniment is an amazing experience) are this city's best seafood places, followed by a great, down-home Galician tavern, Casa d'a Troya, where the lobster 'salpicón' salad is fastuous.

Curiously, of the three only Casa d'a Troya sports a Michelin star. Why?

Madrid is full of restaurants specializing in 'simple' food where the raw materials are of foremost experience, and in that niche market no other city in Spain has anything comparable. (For instance, few foreigners are aware that this is one of the great steak cities on the continent: Asador Frontón, Casa Julián...). But Michelin, and Rafael García Santos locally, have a lot of trouble with these places. They don't know where to put them. Indeed, the culinary creativity is less in them than in the more 'cuisine-oriented' restaurants. But a place like Combarro, in the end, with that wealth of produce, is scarcer than good 'modern cuisine' places, and should be recognized for the overall quality of its offer. After all, if a guide can recognize the greatness of a modest Casa d'a Troya, why does it fail to recognize a Combarro?

One word on the starred restaurants: La Broche can be brilliant, but it has a marked problem of consistency. La Terraza del Casino and Santceloni are more reliable in that sense, IMHO.

[vmilor]

Madrid is full of restaurants specializing in 'simple' food where the raw materials are of foremost experience, and in that niche market no other city in Spain has anything comparable. (For instance, few foreigners are aware that this is one of the great steak cities on the continent: Asador Frontón, Casa Julián...). But Michelin, and Rafael García Santos locally, have a lot of trouble with these places. They don't know where to put them. Indeed, the culinary creativity is less in them than in the more 'cuisine-oriented' restaurants. But a place like Combarro, in the end, with that wealth of produce, is scarcer than good 'modern cuisine' places, and should be recognized for the overall quality of its offer. After all, if a guide can recognize the greatness of a modest Casa d'a Troya, why does it fail to recognize a Combarro?

I share these observations,

Perhaps the failure of the guides are symptomatic of an age where raw materials with integrity are getting scarce and scarcer and the overwhelming majority of the dining population is moved more by razzle-dazzle and theater than by pure taste in unadulturated form.

There is a minority gourmet population in countries such as France, Spain, Italy and Turkey(in the US a very very tiny minority) who are more sophisticated about food than the majority of food writers. These men and women will not give a damn to scores and hype and will follow their instincts. They(like the gentleman whom I met by chance)are the true guaranteurs of continuing good quality in places such as Combarro. They are the ones who cry foul if the turbot is not fresh or the seabass is not wild.

The main difference between the US and continental Europe lies less in creativity and technique than in the quality of ingredients available. Coming to Europe to eat only and only in the highest starred temples is an infantile error we--certainly myself--have all committed. A well meaning American, though, is more likely to commit this mistake as even some of the most celebrated chefs in this country display less of an understanding of raw materials and ingredients than a mastery of gastro-techniques. What looks like "simple" food in places such as Combarro, Goizeko Kabi, Lorenzo, etc., is actually the product of a long historical process as certain preparations have been selected over others for good reasons and after many trials, errors and tribulations. It is very hard to make justice to these restaurants without some knowledge of the respectable(Galician, Basque, Versilian)traditions.

Some "creative" chefs try to trascend these regional traditions and seek an international audience. This is not an easy task. More often than not one gets dishes in these high temples of gastronomy which are just made too bizarre and/or complicated in a search to be original. True creativity exists but it is rarer than guides let us believe. It is also harder to sustain than attain. Once celebrities most chefs step out of the kitchen and codify their cuisine. Fortunately there are exceptions to this rule: Adria, Santamaria, Arbelaitz, Pacaud, Gagnaire, Massimiliano(Le Calandre), Tom Keller....

When in Madrid and visiting the Museum of Decorative Arts(which display a very interesting Valencien kitchen), I saw an exhibit of a recently deceased silversmith whose name I noted but I do not have access to it now. His "simple" looking modern pieces were extraordinary. I read that he had first mastered the techniques and traditions of the late renaissance style before he embarked on his creative journey. Unfortunately we can not make a similar statement for quite a few chefs nowdays and if the market is the ultimate arbiter they are right and I am wrong!

[Bux]

Curiously, of the three only Casa d'a Troya sports a Michelin star. Why?

Madrid is full of restaurants specializing in 'simple' food where the raw materials are of foremost experience, and in that niche market no other city in Spain has anything comparable.

I think it's always been the case that Michelin focuses on the "cooking." While the starred restaurants are expected to use impeccable ingredients, a simple presentation of the finest raw materials is not going to get more than a star anywhere in France and not even that in Paris, let alone Madrid. Michelin's strength is its weakness and vice versa. What it does well, it probably does better than any other guide, but what it does well is to rate and rank restaurants serving in a traditional chef-centric French style.

As vmilor suggests, it is not a good guide to restaurants outside that range and that range is no longer inclusive of all the most interesting places in France, let alone parts of Europe where it may never have been as reliable. A Guide Michelin to Japan for instance, seems totally unworkable. Vmilor speaks of a "gourmet population in countries such as France, Spain, Italy and Turkey(in the US a very very tiny minority) who are more sophisticated about food than the majority of food writers." I understand what he means although there are a minority within the food writer ranks who are also quite sophisticated. In truth gourmets are a minority of the population and sophisticated gastronomes are a small subset of that. The NY Times is a powerful force in NY restaurant business, but we've seen enough people just ignore a rating that was lower than it should be. eGullet is quickly becoming a conduit for some of the best up to date news and opinion about food and where to dine, but even here, one has to learn what to pay attention to and who to listen to. A real interest in food sets our members apart from the rest of society, but we cover the interests of a broad range of the taste of people who enjoy eating. I also believe we are in ways, better off for that as my eyes have been opened to the appreciation of a greater variety of foods via this site.

For me, the issue is not of abandoning the guide, which has really served me well enough at times, but in supplementing it. I will give Michelin some credit for our discovery of at least two memorable meals in unstarred restaurants, but luck played a part.

[vmilor]

One possible misunderstanding I would like to correct. I meant professional "restaurant reviewers" when I mistakenly used the term " food writer". In the ranks of leading gourmet websites there are quite a few non professional reporters whose judgments, IMO, are more rigorous than many reviewers.

Michelin's strength is the anonymity of the reviewers. The phenomenon of capture of a regulatory/supervisory agency by the industry is a fact. Some political economists explain this by invoking venality and rent seeking alone. I do not go along with this 100%. I think there are other relationship based and very human factors at work.

I do not think that we should limit our judgment on the simple versus complex presentation of ingredients in judging a restaurant. Simplicity is in the eye of the beholder. Ingredient quality is not. I think it was Jellybean who had told me that a chef with no lesser status than Ducasse had once confided that there was very little a chef could do to improve on the quality of the ingredients. But this very little, say 10 to 20% is very important and is the hallmark of a great chef. A bit like winemaking really. Excessive meddling is often resulting in a "complex" product whereby"creative" chefs are ruining good material they have started with. This is market driven behavior because chefs are often rewarded when they make things too complicated in a search to be different and original than when they start out by respecting the good material available to them. This is the tragedy or priviledge of Madrid depending on how you look at it. If my 5 days stay is a measure then Madrid is bestowed by MORE high quality products encompassing all categories than any big city I am aware of. On the basis of casual observation I will also say that there are quite a few people from all ranks and income levels that can appreciate good things there. This really contrasts with the US, where, even many attorneys in elite firms feel uncomfortable in chic addresses. Consequently, a search for originality in a city like this should be no nonsense. The gourmets there will not let the chef get away with non sense. On the downside this may mean less stars and less international accolade. On the upside this means that one will continue to eat very well there and a new Adria may be in the offing.

[pedro]

With all the good reviews and comments made about Combarro, I admit I haven't resisted the temptation to go there. Two times, in fact, since vmilor's original post. Last one, lunch past Saturday.

Four or five years ago, I visited the original location at Reina Mercedes, but now I chose to go to the Ortega y Gasset restaurant. I must confess that I'm not mad about seafood, madness that is commonly spread here in Madrid, being the food of choice on important occasions, including the xmas meals. That said, it's almost impossible not to fully enjoy a meal of the quality you have in Combarro. The best king prawns I've had (langostinos alistados), simply grilled with some sea salt, were firm, tender and with a lightly sweet taste at the end. So were the shrimps, perhaps less sweet. The scallops a la gallega has already been described by vmilor. IMHO, is extremely hard to cook seafood without killing the original flavors. This recipe achieves that difficult goal.

Grilled turbot, sea bass, sole meuniere, ranging from exceptional (the turbot) to very good (the sole meuniere, perhaps just a little overcooked. I guess is my mistake to order sole meuniere in Combarro ).

Order a bottle of Albariño with the meal, and you'll have a meal that'll make you happy for some hours. What else could be asked?.

[Steve Martin]

We have just been to Combarro, Ortega y Gasset, and we don't think Michelin have overlooked it. A star really requires a chef who knows what he is doing. Our meal featured some of the worst saucing we have experienced. The seafood ingredients were obviously of very high quality and nicely cooked, but every embellishment by the chef was to their detriment.

The specials of monkfish with sea urchin sauce and grouper with an indiscriminant sauce were good fish spoiled with too much salty, floury sauce. The scallop gallega was a thick, partly incinerated, oniony sauce overpowering a slightly over-cooked scallop that deserved better. My seafood cocktail was excellent morsels of prawn, lobster et al, moulded up with raw onion and boiled egg bits, swimming in a watery lemon dressing. Far too much and massively overpowered by the onion.

Dessert was a selection of quite good crepes and tarts with a very lacklustre kiwi sorbet for my wife (a bad choice - the sorbet, not the wife).

Then the assinine trick of bringing the coffee before dessert was quite finished, despite me asking for it to be brought afterward. These days, when ordering dessert and being asked if I want coffee, I say 'let's wait and see', but I didn't feel up to this in a foreign tongue. I did stress I wanted it afterwards though.

Quite good service though, particularly among the head staff.

Do go, but be very sure to choose simple dishes where the chef's creations do not feature.

[Bux]

some of the worst saucing we have experienced.  The seafood ingredients were obviously of very high quality and nicely cooked, but every embellishment by the chef was to their detriment.

Given what others have been saying about Combarro, I'm not all that surprised. There are many restaurants in the world where one can get a good steak or fresh seafood of the first quality, but where you can't find anyone with the ability to make a decent sauce. It's been my lot in life to ask too much of these places, or perhaps to ask the wrong thing of them, but Im learning and travel in Spain is more rewarding to me for that. In Sanlucar de Barrameda I recall ordering just seafoods by name and they came unadorned, either boiled or grilled with maybe a bit of vinaigrette or lemon. A few years ago, I would have instinctively searched for some complex preparation somewhere on the menu, and been greatly disappointed when the dish arrived. This time, my only regret was in ordering the manzanilla by the half bottle.

Do go, but be very sure to choose simple dishes where the chef's creations do not feature.

Good advice, for those who have not yet understood this thread.

[pedro]

I'm afraid that this restaurant will always be linked to eG in my memory. Not only that, but I believe that everytime that I order "pure" seafood from now on I won't be able to avoid remembering some of the debates held here by Miguel Cardoso, vmilor and vserna.

We went last Sunday for a lunch to Gaztelupe. Closed. So, giving a try to Combarro at the Reina Mercedes location, just a couple of blocks away, seem the right thing to do. Completely crowded at 15:30 (it's Sunday, after all), we were given the last table available at one of the rooms upstairs.

We began with some almejas a la marinera, which are clams cooked in a thick sauce of saffron, red pepper, onion and such. That was our only mistake ordering: much better have them by themselves, without any interferences from other ingredients. And while we're dealing with the subject of almejas a la marinera, I have to confess that I prefer having them in a much lighter sauce: some oil, fresh parsley, garlic and white wine. Though the version that Betelu presents in a thick sauce...

Soon we recover from our mistake. A couple of gigantic grilled cigalas (Dublin bay prawn, Nephrops norvegicus) reached our table. It's amazing how many different flavors can a single cigala develop. The sweet taste of the tail with a slight iodized touch at the end, the deep and mineral flavors of the head, the saltiness and iodized meat you get when you work your way to the flesh of the claws, ... Of course, you could really know that you were having an exceptional piece when you compare this latter flesh, tender and firm, with the dryness that is so common when you have cigalas in other places.

Dorada a la sal (gilt-head sea bream, Sparus aurata cooked in a bed of sea salt completely covering it) with all-i-oli, plus a rodaballo (turbot, psetta maxima) cooked in the oven on a fish stock with some sauce of tomato and onion, which puzzled me at the beginning but worked very well in the end, were our entrées. Excellent, but the memories of the cigalas were hard to remove from our minds.

A Ribeiro wine, Viña Meín 02, was a fair companion throughtout the meal.

When we left, the restaurant was virtually empty but for the table next to us. A regular customer was complaining to the captain about a theoretical decline in the service. His complaint, was that the dishes came emplatados from the kitchen, that is, none or little preparation in front of the customer was done. He could have a point, but as the captain told him, the product is still the same. An unknown to me restaurant in Claudio Coello was named by them as a place which was attracting some former Combarro regulars.

[Gerry Dawes]

Well, vmilor, you're now privy to a Madrid restaurant specialty: that of being the most 'mis-rated' city in Europe in the Michelin guide. In another thread I recently referred to Combarro (and I was thinking specifically of the newer Ortega y Gasset branch) as "probably the most spectacular seafood place anywhere right now – I’ve seen wine writer Stephen Tanzer almost swoon over tiny ‘camarón’ shrimp there..." I'd say Combarro and, in a different style, O'Pazo (the roast turbot with just its juices and a drop of sherry vinegar as accompaniment is an amazing experience) are this city's best seafood places, followed by a great, down-home Galician tavern, Casa d'a Troya, where the lobster 'salpicón' salad is fastuous.

Curiously, of the three only Casa d'a Troya sports a Michelin star. Why?

Madrid is full of restaurants specializing in 'simple' food where the raw materials are of foremost experience, and in that niche market no other city in Spain has anything comparable. (For instance, few foreigners are aware that this is one of the great steak cities on the continent: Asador Frontón, Casa Julián...). But Michelin, and Rafael García Santos locally, have a lot of trouble with these places. They don't know where to put them. Indeed, the culinary creativity is less in them than in the more 'cuisine-oriented' restaurants. But a place like Combarro, in the end, with that wealth of produce, is scarcer than good 'modern cuisine' places, and should be recognized for the overall quality of its offer. After all, if a guide can recognize the greatness of a modest Casa d'a Troya, why does it fail to recognize a Combarro?

I couldn't agree more with Victor. Gastronomically, Madrid is a very under-rated city. I have had fantastic meals at O'Pazo and Combarro and his comment about steak houses is right on.

Plus, why are there not more of these great traditional cuisine restaurants all over Spain being awarded Michelin stars? For instance, for me Kaia in Getaria is a three-star restaurant for food, service, wine, list, ambience and view. And, despite, some people's tendency to denigrate the place lately, Casa Bigote in Sanlucar de Barrameda is a firm two-star in my mind. There are many, many more. The Michelin Guide in Spain has outlived its usefulness. Spain has its own guidebooks that far more accurately reflect current Spanish culinary realities. And I must add that France is locked in a competition with Spain right now with many serious culinarians believing that Spain has edged ahead. The fact that Michelin is a French guide and had a quota of under 120 rosettes for the entire country this year speaks for itself.

[Bux]

There's good eating to be found on both sides of the Pyrenees, I'n not ready to declare a winner, but the Michelin guides to France and Spain are not a good indication of the relative balance. There's a recent post on the France forum complaining of the paucity of good cooking in the Roussillon. Take a good look at the maps in the Michelin Guide Rouge and Guia Roja for both sides of the Pyrenees along the Mediterranean and you'll see a denser array of stars on the Spanish side. Even so, I'll agree that it's rougher to get multiple stars in Spain than in France. (Of course both countries have their more and less interesting regions.)

[vserna]

Take a good look at the maps in the Michelin Guide Rouge and Guia Roja for both sides of the Pyrenees along the Mediterranean and you'll see a denser array of stars on the Spanish side.

This is logical, Bux - population density and even average income are much less on the Roussillon and Pays Basque side of the border than on the Catalonia and Euskadi, i.e. the Spanish side of the border. They couldn't find more good restaurants on the French side if they looked for them with a magnifying glass - there just aren't any. But look at the overall picture - there are almost five times more starred restaurants in the Michelin France than in the Michelin Spain guide. Not only that - there are twice as many in Italy, Germany or the UK than in Spain. And these percentages are simply not realistic any longer. So the (unfounded?) suspicion reigns that Michelin has an agenda of promoting France and maintaining a fixed star quota for Spain (where the number of starred restaurants has hardly risen at all in the past 20 years!), which is seen as a big rival for the tourists' $$$.

Edited July 27, 2004 by vserna (log)

[Gerry Dawes]

Go to any halfway decent restaurant (and some not even on the culinary radar) on the Spanish side of the border on Sundays and try to find a non-French car in the parking lots. ;-)

[Bux]

I've seen a few French plates on cars loading cases of wine in front of wine shops and supermarkets as well.