As soon as the door is opened, Obanos is greeted with a whiff of the smell of fire. We are in Casas-Ibáñez, in the La Mancha region of The Manchuela . From their hometown, Javier Sanz and Juan Sahuquillo are stirring consciences, marking a new path and opening doors with views of their valley.
To do so, all they have to do is look around them and bring what they see to their kitchen with an innocent and ingenious self-confidence free of ties. "We resort to proximity but it is surroundings, not kilometer zero" , they explain to us.
His speech revolves around Júcar or Cabriel fish , meats from native breeds or drinks with fermented foods. They lay down the rules, which are the exception for something: the new generations also want to return to that place from which many left to, they say, carve out a future. Yours is in the same place as his past, where his family started it all.
Oba Room- in La Manchuela.
First it was Cañitas Maite and now it is Oba's turn: his dream come true, his gastronomic restaurant with four tables where from Monday to Friday they feed a dozen people per service. The difference is clear: in Cañitas there are days that have 200 diners, which are the same as those who eat in Oba- in a month. "We have dragged a label that weighed heavily on us: Cañitas Maite is not a gastronomic restaurant," they confess to us.
Oba- is the root and the subject of the most essential principles of the human being in bonifanciano , a universal language created in 1855 by the priest Bonifacio Sotos Ochando precisely in his town.
His cause is clear: recover the folklore of his valley and serve it in the form of tasting menu that for them it is not such, but a compendium of stories, histories and customs. Letters of extreme hard , fragments of picatrix Or the Hunter's Encyclopedia are intermingled with his own reflections in a roadmap in the form of a booklet with 19 chapters, of which we will reveal only a few.
Oba- in the field.
FORGOTTEN NUANCES
The welcome is also warm on the palate: a broth, a forest lichen (“Mountain Risketos”, they call it) and a crispy fermented mushroom served in the bark of a wooden log . Natural materials are the other protagonists: ceramics, linen, bone. They have worked with artisans from all over Europe, who have designed tableware for them that exudes ruralism.
In the cup, you can choose two paths: forgotten nuances , wines from wineries that have been selected for their projects to recover native varieties, or nature , a proposal based on low-proof natural and fermented beverages that have taken three months to develop: elderberry vermouth, apiotonic, pomegranate kefir, pine kombucha, chestnut guarapo or carob brown ale. We opted for the second and let ourselves be carried away by Carlos Martín, his sommelier.
Right from the beginning we realize that Oba- speaks face to face with local producers like Isaac, whom they mention repeatedly. That synergy that they have created with it allows us to touch, see and taste the tubers from a new perspective in the form of a trilogy: beetroot tatin, fresh cream and caviar ; Roasted chervil root with black truffle and smoked ground pear cream with seeds. Javi Redondo, his very young room manager, explains everything with amazing ease.
The river fish are another of your bets. We see this when the nearby Cabriel comes on the scene, where the pike comes from, whose roe is salted and accompanied by sheep butter and white asparagus miso.
Or a species that has practically disappeared, but which was previously common to find in the Jucar river : the brown trout , which they bring from a fish farm in Uña (Cuenca) and which they make with charcoal to remember the way river fishermen used to cook their booty with the embers of the fire. With it they fill a tasty potato taco with spirulina.
Forgotten tubers.
In his repertoire there is also meat, but it is suitable for diners bored with its classic approach , sometimes so tiresome for being vulgar and repetitive. They, with a draft duck from La Albufera, make a mortadella that surrounds it with vegetable nuances, such as pickled puma plums, mustard, an addictive pistachio pesto and wild herbs or fermented celeriac. Nico Sabogal is responsible for ferments in the kitchen of Oba-, who has been working piecemeal for months.
With a Celtiberian kid, a native breed of La Mancha in danger of extinction (there are 6,000 copies left in the world), from the neighboring municipality of alpera , create a smoked pastrami accompanied by some shoots from the Cabriel River.
Charcoal fario trout.
The dish with which they won also has its place in the vast menu the best marinade contest in Madrid Fusión 2021 in that historic triplet: it is from Castilian rooster breast from Tomelloso with pickled vegetables , accompanied by a piece of puff pastry with parfait from the insides of the rooster.
The dish with the simplest ingredients (turnip and bread) is a tribute to two foods that alleviated so much hunger decades ago. And this winter turnip glazed in vegetable juice with moist, flaky texture , which turns out to be a kind of vegetable tartlet, accompanied by a roasted sourdough cream, is one of the great surprises.
A wheat, yeast and koji ice cream is another of them: located in the middle of the menu, it catches us with changed taste buds, but as soon as we put the first spoonful in our mouth, we understand it in one bite. Why not?
Wheat, yeast and koji.
A KITCHEN THAT LOOKS FORWARD
At this point in the film it is clear that in Oba- seek to disconcert : another chapter is a kind of fried fish. read a marinated and battered sturgeon fin . Javi acknowledges the provocation: “I love prawns in a raincoat and I wanted our restaurant to the diner ate a fried fish with his hands and spread it in a sauce”.
In his case, a fresh cream of viili (a type of yogurt of Scandinavian origin) made from goat's milk topped with a sriracha of smoked padrón green peppers. The image is very powerful at a conceptual level, although it generates obvious suspicions.
Sturgeon fin, sourdough and fresh cream.
So is that of Pablo Linares, the pastry chef from Oba-, turning the crank of a 1902 Elma refrigerator that they found in an antique dealer and that they repaired with the help of a craftsman from the town. The result is a Jerusalem artichoke ice cream, candied pine nuts and black trumpet molasses.
With sheep's colostrum, toffee and bee bread, they make the dessert that sweet tooth will like best: warm, dairy, creamy... and photogenic.
After three and a half hours that have flown by, we realize that Oba- could well be one of those cabins that are refuge and home at the same time. Javi and Juan trained and worked abroad, but they have not been long in returning home to create their own , with Cañitas Maite as the matrix. This couple of friends don't want to be left only with the label of revelation chefs.
The young team of Oba-.
A GENERATION OF COOKS WITH THEIR OWN LAWS
Some still look at them with reluctance: their youth overwhelms and generates self-confessed suspicion among experienced gastronomes or amateurs who are twice or triple their age, but they also provoke admiration and hope in equal measure.
Javi and Juan are amply capable, but a part of the world is not yet ready for this generation of chefs who have their own laws , who dare not to follow the established itinerary, who recognize their mistakes and dismantle any criticism with arguments as solid as they are honest.
In their early twenties, others were still looking at the shrews, but they have had a very clear horizon for a long time. For now, in addition to the birth of Oba-, this 2022 Cañitas Maite will cross the Mediterranean to land in Ibiza. The lucky one is the agrotourism Dog Dome , whose gastronomic space will be commanded by six people from the team and two of the chefs, Gonzalo Rivera and Borja García. Tomorrow (in a few years) another great project will arrive that they no longer hide.
will also be in The Manchuela , because they have returned to town to stay... and so that we all go to see them more than once a year.