Iberian rice with Carrasco ham, secret and La Milla bacon
They tell us that this year it's time travel inward doors and I almost feel guilty because I'm glad; with a small mouth, but I'm glad.
And I say this being aware of the provincial smell and the hair, little hair from the Dehesa so traditional that it exudes the “Nowhere like in Spain” , but let me for once get farruco of love for what is mine: we live in a paradise but we don't finish realizing it , we live in the ideal country to carry out that road and blanket , which today will take us from the north to the south of the peninsula, but we'll hit you with Southeast Asia and the check list to show off at dinners for four. what a laziness, you.
Traveling "doors in" is this, don't forget it
Because luxury is time and how much time is lost between boarding gates, unforeseen delays and transatlantic flights ; was one of the precious conclusions of the The Immutable debate, the talk that was the culmination of the Condé Nast Traveler Conversations in the meeting of the above signer with Mar Suau, owner of Son Brull, Daniel Figuero, fragrance ambassador for Dior and David Moralejo , director of this beautiful magazine about travel and beauty.
The luxury of timeless pleasures It is perhaps one of the consequences of this eternal confinement, “the virus will change many of our customs, it will change some of our habits and bring us new ones. But, there will also be things that will continue to be the same, that will not change, because they are eternal and imperishable and will continue to mark our journeys. **Good service, a room with a view, a building with history, a mohair blanket or a good whiskey”. **
Eternal and imperishable as the barges arriving at the port of Getaria or some skewered sardines on a beach in Malaga . Total, that this year I intuit fewer flights to who knows where and more rattling of the train and hours of road with junk in the trunk; stop where you please, live slowly, know our soil beyond the obvious.
This journey starts on the border between Errenteria and Astigarraga , because Mugaritz reopens its doors on July 31 with the desire to be more Mugaritz than ever. the planet of Andoni Luis Aduriz as a symbol (this is what I say) of a haute cuisine in need of a resurrection and consider a model of which we already saw too many seams from that trench that is always a table:
The perfection
Andoni, I want you to stir me up, make me think, get excited and burn “like spiders among the stars” . At Mugaritz, one of the most purifying proposals in the gastronomy ecosystem, you have always done so, because you have never ceased to be a space for questions rather than for answers: "The possible of the impossible is measured by the will of the human being."
From Guipúzcoa to Asturias and the Real Balneario Salinas, Mugaritz and the Balneario : yin and yang of our kitchen but we need you both. isaac loya (with his mother Eva del Río next to him) in front of a kitchen with both feet in the fish market and whose foundations are anchored in the sand, few after-meals in Spain with such an overwhelming view, so eternal: stratospheric raw material and seafood enough to die between happiness and hyperuricemia, I don't know what more one can ask of life.
Maybe spend the night in front of Costa da Morte and watch the sunrise with views of Praia de Louridol, It is time to dock in Galicia at the "most avant-garde inn in Spain, since its architecture is very integrated in the environment , with all green roofs, except the upper one, whose materials mix glass, wood and zinc. The woods are bamboo, beech and oak”, says Julio Castro, director of Parador Costa da Morte. Octopus 'á feira', terroir wines and tradition well understood We want more inns like this.
Elcano will never fail us
Before traveling south, as Victor Erice in that timeless masterpiece of the same name -the immutable, again- touches say goodbye to the north at Aitor Arregui's table, guilty (guilty!) of this love for the genre that unites us so many: Elkano, the totemic embers where fire purifies nonsense and gives us anew, each time, faith in the kitchen forever.
Nothing more and nothing less than the Getaria of the Salvador Church, the fishermen and the serene afternoons in front of the port. Of the bicycles, Balenciaga and the aromas (salt, restlessness and marusía) that rise from the dams to the San Antón mountain. I would travel to the farthest reaches of the universe to eat one more time at Elkano, but is in San Sebastián, as not to celebrate it.
The first settlement, of course, had to be in a beach bar: in the best beach bar in Andalusia. The Marbella Mile by Luis Miguel Menor and César Morales premieres its sixth season with a space redesigned by Marta Zarzalejos and with a cellar of 500 references to drink: this looks good.
La Milla's menu is mainly made up of seafood and fish from of the Andalusian coasts, especially from Cadiz, Tarifa, Malaga, Granada and Almeria . A selection of the best genre that always adapts to the season, product availability and daily catches , as it should be (added).
nothing more to add
As for what to choose, it is impossible: pil-pil prawns, the casserole of mussels or anchovies from the Bay of Malaga, fried red mullets or paellas such as its **Iberian rice with slices of Iberian ham "Carrasco", bacon and secret. **
We continue in Malaga because in the Carvajal beach in Fuengirola there is one of those temples of the product that seems tailor-made for enjoyment: it is amazing how well you eat and drink at Los Marinos José, restaurant with its own fishing boat and essential parish of so many parishioners without Instagram.
Every day it becomes clearer to me that a great restaurant is also great because of the desire one has to return and here we want to do it every week, every day: marvelous marine hedonism through all its forms, Tuna mormo, anchovy from Malaga, shrimp tartar with caviar, dressed spider crab, coquinas, barnacle, red prawn from Palamós or Corvina del Estrecho.
From Fuengirola to Cadiz to crash the party Dani Garcia in Tarifa: BIBO Beach House , after conquering the Villa and Court of Madrid, faces his second summer in the Valdevaqueros beach with platters like him creamy salmorejo or fried Cádiz shrimp but also new creations by Dani, who doesn't stop still. Now wants to go back to new york but I'm staying in Tarifa, brodel, watching the Cadiz sunsets with a manzanilla in hand.
well not so bad
The gastronomic roadtrip of the strangest summer of our lives has started in Mugaritz and it makes sense to drop anchor in Aponiente , the dream in stone and saltpeter angel lion , who continues to sail passionately against the storm, that's what great captains do, right? And it is that I believe at face value what the proverb says, “no calm sea made a sailor expert”.