The new VIP terrace in Madrid.
were the Chef Miguel Martin and the rest of the team behind the restaurant Customs deciding their name and their concept when they went out to the exclusive terrace of Hotel Gran Melia Fenix and they saw the Plaza de Colón. The idea came out by itself: if the client was going to eat looking at the discoverer, why not put him on a a gastronomic journey with stops in the Americas and following the entire ancient spice route to Asia?
Said and done. From the name, Customs, the restaurant, which was born as an exclusive space for its most VIP guests and today opens its doors to everyone, invites you to go on a trip. “It is designed for international customer that we have”, explains Miguel Martín, who has been cooking for the hotel chain since 2001. “We saw what nationalities we had, and we have winked at them in the menu. From our experience, we receive many who ask you for something specific and many times they are requests that may seem strange, but that later surprisingly work”.
Martín has been listening to customers and traveling for years, and this is how his self-taught cuisine has been formed, which now reaches its highest level in a menu that starts from the Mediterranean or the Cantabrian to get to Peru, New Orleans or Japan. Wanting to get rid of the hackneyed word fusion, the chef talks about "of mixed race". “It is not a molecular cuisine, nor an author, it is a product kitchen, market,” he explains.
The exclusive room.
It is also a kitchen that aspires to a feeling of affordable exclusivity, “classic luxury”, as he defines it. That's why you see ingredients like the oysters, that serve them natural or in their New Orleans version, Rockefeller style. There's also Riofrio caviar Among the starters, a plate of foie en crème brûlée and what already seems to be one of the stars of the place: the crab to donostiarra. "Without any return, because it seemed sacrilege to me," says Miguel Martín.
Mediterranean salad.
The red mullet usuzukuri to the point and potera of squid with onions is also already one of the most popular in the small Customs room (with space for 22 people inside and 18 on the terrace). It is one of the main marine dishes that he has called “Whimsy of the sea” because they are, precisely, whims. “I wanted to get away from the most common fish on the menus, such as hake. We have left only one sea bass, and the rest are fish or ways of cooking them that are not seen as much, such as quinoa crab and king crab or a cause from Lima that here is bluefin tuna ”, he says and thus they have added that healthy wink that is so much demanded today.
Iberian feather and verbenas.
WHY GO
For eating a donstiarra-style spider crab with exclusive views on that spectacular terrace overlooking the Plaza de Colón.
Cheesecake with basil.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES
Watch out for out of letter that Miguel Martín will include to animate this gastronomic journey that he proposes from the heights of Madrid.
IN DATA
Address: Seventh floor of the Gran Meliá Fénix Hotel, Calle de Hermosilla, 2
Telephone: 914 316 700
Schedules: every day from 1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. and from 8:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.
Half price: 45/50 euros (excluding caviar)
San Sebastian crab, the king.