Miguel Ángel de la Cruz: a life among pine forests
Several have been students of Manolo de la Osa ( Las Rejas ) What a coincidence! Before fame comes to them and success catches them -which will happen- put your chef hunter skills to the test : discovering its cuisine is well worth a trip.
MIGUEL ANGEL OF THE CROSS
he is the cook collector, connoisseur and lover of the pine forests , capable of making a dish with ingredients collected within a radius of 500 meters: pineapples, pine nuts, mushrooms, wild herbs... The landscape served on the plate in The pharmacy of Matapozuelos . In August, when the albar pineapples, those from the stone pines, are in season, he composes a menu with only them: he scratches them green as if they were truffles, infuses them, roasts them, squeezes them to prepare vinaigrettes, uses the tender pine nuts raw, fried, roasted, toasted ripe ones... A true exercise of imagination that is reflected in the Piñon and pineapple albar gastronomic days , which are held every year. Technique and sensitivity to the service of the product and the environment.
The rest of the year he bets on the Castilian pantry: legumes, vegetables from the village gardens, game and suckling lamb (roasted in a wood oven as required by the canons). The most striking snack is a green pineapple granita with grated pineapple and pine nuts , an explosion of freshness and astringency, which leaves you unsettled and hooks you.
The Matapozuelos apothecary: Plaza Mayor, 2 47230 Matapozuelos (Valladolid). 983 832 942. Average price: 50 euros.
dry leaves of deciduous forest
DANIEL OCHOA
Good, beautiful and cheap cuisine? Yes, the one made by Daniel Ochoa and -his partner- Luis Moreno in Montia, a small restaurant that has just opened in the Madrid mountains. With humble products they prepare level dishes. If someone thinks that it is not possible to eat splendidly for 30 euros, stop by here. Refrain from looking for wild sea bass, or squab (how lazy), or black truffle. What is offered is authentic market cuisine. There is no menu or dishes, no cellar list, only two menus that are harmonized with wines -few- very well chosen. The offer is decided daily . Most of the food comes from the surrounding towns: artisan bread from the Río Padrillo biodynamic farm (Cercedilla), butter from La Colmenareña, meat from the Jiménez Barbero farm (Colmenarejo), vegetables from nearby orchards, mushrooms that they collect themselves ...
It is delicious Corujas and wild watercress salad , the same as the royal rabbit with beet cream, turnip and carrots or the very tender entrécula taco (that piece so persecuted that it is known as the butcher's sirloin because it is cheap and very good) with garlic cream and juice of trumpets of the dead. Casual cuisine, with a classic soul . The most spectacular, the tray of artisan cheeses all from the Sierra de Madrid, refined and splendid, which is included in a menu of 25 euros . Incredible but true!
Montia: Calvary, 4. San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Madrid). 911 336 988. Average price €33
Sam Mamés kid with small barley salad and river cress
JUAN CARLOS TRUJILLO
His restaurant is called cinnamon stick , and that smells as soon as you walk through the door. On the ground floor, a tapas bar, upstairs a charming little dining room. And what do they give us here that we can't find in other places in Linares? well one traditional Andalusian cuisine prepared with modern criteria . This translates into low-fat dishes, products cooked to perfection, small creative sparks and modern techniques applied with rigor and criteria. Refined recipes, adapted to contemporary taste but that they have not lost flavor and that they remain faithful to the roots.
You are in Linares and it shows: oil from Jaén, vegetables from the Granada plain, cheeses from Ronda and the Pedroches valley, Iberian pork from Huelva, mushrooms and game from Sierra Morena... It is essential to try the Iberian orza sashimi , cured pork secret taco with sugar and salt that is cut into very thin slices and served with curry mayonnaise and asadillo cream, spectacular! No less tasty are the pieces of pork cheek with rosemary honey... so crispy! Or the Iberian jowl with artichokes. Pure ode to the acorn pig!
Cinnamon sticks: Argentine Republic 12. Linares (Jaén) . 953 602 532. Average price: €35
SERGIO MARTINEZ
He has been fighting for three years in the center of Murcia, a community in which he was declared best chef in 2008. His local Keki It is a colorful, casual and noisy space where tapas and menus are served. But under that inappearance -there are hundreds of places like this- hides a long-distance kitchen . It is enough to taste the croquettes -battered in panko, the Japanese breadcrumbs- to realize that in the kitchen there is someone with criteria and a very good hand . The letter is short but very well thought out: all are portions to share . Anchovies with lemon, tuna tataki with yogurt -we are in the almadraba area-, roasted tomato stuffed with squid, duck cannelloni -magnificent-, roasted octopus with beer and ratatouille, tempura cod taco, lean pork cake with spring onion and cilantro, rice pudding with coffee, cheese flan...
In addition, every day of the week a stew is prepared, all succulent: roasted lamb; gypsy pot with pumpkin, chicken with beer and cabañil garlic potatoes, Murcian stew with balls, rice with vegetables and ribs, etc. Up-to-date, tasty and spirited regional cuisine , which stands out from that relocated offer, so fashionable now (it doesn't matter if you're in Pontevedra or in Albacete) full of scallops, foie gras or cheeks, which causes nothing but tremendous boredom.
Keki Tapería: Fuensanta 4. Murcia. 968 220 798 Average price: €25
Sergio Martínez in Keki, Murian stoves with verve
Ivan Sardinian
It represents the latest renewal of La Mancha cuisine, for something he has been working with Pepe Rodríguez in El Bohío. Last week at the gastronomic congress MadridFusion stunned a jury presided over by Pedro Subijana with a Manchego marinade with horse mackerel and Flor de Esgueva cheese.
Refining the strong flavors of La Mancha is not easy , but he achieves it with grace, with ease, with ease. La Casa del Carmen is a restaurant that is too sober for him, too well set up. I imagine it in a younger, more informal, more modern place. His proposals are classic on paper, traditional: hake in green sauce, roasted shoulder of kid, Iberian pork with Almagro aubergine stew... But at the table they change : fresh, light, clean, well-thought-out dishes appear, in which change is perceived, a twist of modernity . To finish with a sweet wink: cheese, honey and green apple.
La Casa del Carmen: Madrid-Toledo Highway KM 61,200. Olías del Rey (Toledo). 925 49 07 59. *You may also be interested...
- The 101 restaurants to visit before you die
- All articles by Julia Pérez Lozano
Iván Cerdeño reproducing his winning cover at MadridFusión