Crystal bread, jowls, natural mustard and truffle in Palodú
** Madrid Fusión, 2020 .** Several **snacks from Malaga ** are invoked at the national gastronomic fair. The elaboration with cheese, sardines and smoke by Diego René López restaurant chef beluga and kraken , is considered the best recipe with cheese from Spain.
The 'mini sandwich of the Montes de Málaga' of Irene Garrido (KGB) gets second place in the contest Signature Sandwiches.
Malaga's cocktail bar Chester & Punk enters the list of Top Cocktail Bars in Spain and Portugal. A few months before, San Sebastián Gastronomika took to the Olympus of the Russian salads by **Javier Hernández, chef of the Candado Golf restaurant ** in the capital.
A gastrobar with character
Although these acknowledgments may be anecdotal, the reality is that Malaga begins to escape from the yoke of the worn-out destiny-sun-and-beach and from its consideration as simple connection point to reach other Andalusian cities.
The capital of the Costa del Sol he looks at his navel and defends his gastronomic speech, marked by the Mediterranean tsunami and yes, also by the tourist one.
PRAISE THE PRODUCT
The map of the center of Malaga has more than five hundred catering establishments . Contrary to what might seem, between so much supply -and demand arriving by land, sea and air, with flip flops and fork held high- it is not difficult trace the smell of good cooking.
There are many chefs, enthusiastic entrepreneurs and the seasoned cooks from this and other margins those who have known how to distinguish their proposal in that dense nebula of disconcerting letters that condense everything that marks modernity -light also covers shadows-.
A local kitchen
“The recovery and revaluation of the local is a global phenomenon” comment Esperanza Pelae z, food journalist and founder of the Zero Kilometer Club whose objective is to spread the culinary wealth of the province. "Is about sell something that distinguishes you from the competition , something of your own, when it is very easy to find the same type of business wherever you travel”.
There the restaurants are being the key: "They are beginning to engage with the agri-food production sector of the area to distinguish itself from the competition.
There are green shoots. Jose Carlos Garcia with its namesake restaurant with a Michelin star (and its second brands Café de Paris and Balauta) or the chef Daniel Ram They are a good example of it. In The Cosmopolitan -recently included in the gala guide- Carnero manages with a good hand what grows -and lies- between the sea and the mountains of Malaga.
The elaborations of it can also be tasted in its highest form in Kaleja , his new restaurant. “He has bet heavily and that is the best symptom for the gastronomy of the city. If you win, will drag more people into the fight . It will be the spearhead," he says. Fernando Huidobro, president of the Andalusian Academy of Gastronomy and Tourism.
The Cosmopolitan
The gazpachuelo, the cabbage, the catfish broth, the thin shells and the skittles , the dish of the mountains or the goat are part of the malagueño cookbook in its most austere versions and in the most refined also because the kitchen has no choice but to evolve.
“Ajoblanco is not served today as it was served fifty years ago but we are seeing that this recipe book has value", says Peláez, adding that "those recipes should be taught in hospitality schools because what we do eat in a restaurant now is being lost at home.”
Likewise, avoid the fish culture It would mean giving up part of Malaga's identity. From El Caleño, Los Espigones or Gutiérrez Playa you can smell the saltpeter and also enjoy a good frying and a coven of sardines as the pagans command.
Right on the asphalt, the ** seafood restaurant Godoy , Jacinto , Noray , La Casa de Botes or El Refectorium ** do not fail to treat the zero kilometer product. ** La Deriva , in Soho**, is an interesting address if, in addition, you want access to one of the most prolific wine lists in the city.
Cheeses in La Deriva
THE FOREIGN IS NOT STRANGE
At the epicenter of the offers of fried-grilled-grilled fish , of cuts of Iberian walks, ceviches and tartares , of smoked sardines and asian and avocado baos , a lot of avocado, alternative proposals make their way that have known how to get their heads out of the water and stay afloat and that show that in Malaga , the sum wins.
“Málaga has always been a welcoming place for people from abroad who have stayed to live here. For us the foreign is not strange ”, he comments Huidobro . And there is no doubt about Malaga's cosmopolitanism.
Malaga has become a helpful hostess of the trends that arrive , by land, sea and air, from the rest of the planet.
In this sense, the city has companies such as Antonio Jiménez from the Ta-Kumi restaurant, reliable proof that fish in Malaga should not always be folkloric.
Egg garganelli with speck cream and boletus from La Pala d’Oro
In this space with views of the Alcazaba, Jiménez's dishes command attention. His bar is a spectacle: he tames aquatic vertebrates with the skill of a circus tamer.
There are more culinary passports. The Pala d'Oro has become one of the Italian restaurants of reference in Malaga With its traditional cookbook and the **Nina Bonita cantina**, it offers from Soho a modest but noble Mexican cuisine from the hand of the right hand Reyna Traverse.
And as the capital also knows modesty, there is no shortage of options for all audiences, whatever the capacity of her pocket. La Baiona, from Calle Beatas , offers a menu focused on the italian piadinas with dozens of chimerical versions: fast food with a slow spirit. The chinese restaurant ramen, chinese-chinese, The stop there is no waste.
Herviborous Society
The vegan kitchen The Herbivorous Society has sneaked into the streets of the center and is a good example of courage to offer something alternative with commitment as a basis.
“Maintaining traditional recipe books is absolutely necessary, but it is not a pending task. Has many safeguards ”. The bet of the president of the Gastronomic Academy of Malaga is to continue opening the field in the field of international cuisine. "Let's look to the future," he dictates.
A MORE CHAUVINIST FUTURE
And that, of the future, is in charge of a few chefs who are a shock to Malaga's current gastronomy and who are the stars of its effervescence. Young Cristina Canovas and Diego Aguilar have turned the course of their gastrobar, Palodu , and they have turned it into a table on which to pour out the best teachings they harvested in kitchens such as those of Mugaritz, Calima or ElBulli.
Chickpeas from the Herbivorous Society
From the east of the city comes good news such as Primitive with the boaerense Pablo Luis Quinones at the head -cuisine based on the product worked with techniques that respect its nature to the maximum- or ** The Revolt of the Frenchman Arnault Scheidhauer** that champions a very personal proposal.
In the center, the winner of the best recipe with cheese in Madrid Fusión, Diego Rene Lopez , just opened a second brand, **Kraken , which runs the kitchen of his flagship restaurant, **Beluga, to a diner with a comparable palate but a smaller bank account.
Alba Gutierrez of Garcia Tavern , **Álvaro Ávila from La Alvaroteca ** or **Alejandro Salido from Soca ** are other protagonists of this new generation that is interested in gastronomy as the trend dictates but that “in addition to cooking very well, they are knowing how to live with the difficulties that the hospitality business entails and taking them forward”, comments the journalist from Malaga.
Pan-fried mushrooms with foie and truffle
Always lagging behind ** Marbella **, Malaga capital has begun to build a polyhedral gastronomic identity that does not forget tradition but turns towards the future and does not enter into possessive geographical claims.
“The people of Malaga begin to boast of product and recipe like gazpachuelo or Russian salad, which is not even from here but is becoming a religion in the city”. And yes, the Padlock Golf is a prize.
The city resounds in the not so low funds of the national gastronomic sector and those who step on the airport, the stations or the docks of the city stay within its borders.
And it is that beyond the awards and the acknowledgments in fairs and guides , of the circumstantial owner, of the promotion work of public and private entities, in Malaga boil product and talent.
The man from Malaga begins to believe it . That's the key, that's when the water reaches 100 degrees Celsius. Huidobro ratifies it: “Málaga is not at all chauvinistic but in gastronomy We have things to brag about. And we start to do it ”.