Latest news with #SpanishCuisine
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Legado: Michelin-starred Nieves Barragán to open new Spanish restaurant in Shoreditch
The latest high-profile restaurant to open in the new Shoreditch development under the Overground line is Legado, a new Spanish concept from Nieves Barragán Mohacho and JKS Restaurants. Legado, which means 'legacy', is next door to the new Singburi, while the Standard understands another big opening is planned nearby (we cannot say yet, but hold tight). Barragán is best known for her Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurant Sabor, a multi-floor restaurant that spans Spain's regional cuisine. Legado, the Standard was told, 'is set to move beyond the familiar, allowing the wider ingredients, lesser-known dishes, regional culinary traditions and the Spanish artisans to take centre stage.' The 60-cover restaurant – with a further 16 at the counter – will serve tapas and pintxos that shine a light on specific producers, ingredients and Spanish traditions. Lamb, for example, will come from Lechazo de Castilla y León (an origin-protected producer), while suckling pig is to be sourced from the award-winning farm Tabladillo el Cochinillo in Segovia, a province north of Madrid, Fish will be treated much the same, with a menu that traverses Spanish coastlines. Dishes are to include crystal Mediterranean prawns with smoked paprika and Moscatel vinegar, and confit lobster with chilli and garlic served on a base of thinly sliced potatoes. Both will come topped with a runny fried egg. As for vegetarian dishes, the most interesting could be the 'Legado sandwich', made with Swiss chard, cecina, and smoked cheese fried in breadcrumbs, which Barragán remembers her grandmother making for her in the Basque region. 'Spain's food heritage is incredible and has rightly deserved recognition in London and globally,' she said. 'Its colours, tastes, and smells are rooted deeply within me. However, many dishes I love, I have never seen outside the country and want to bring them and even more to London.' As for wines, diners should expect a 150-bin list celebrating Spanish vintages, and 'seasonally changing vegetable and fruit-based cocktails served chilled but without ice.' There will be three-sip drinks, short drinks being the fashion in London right now. The restaurant will look Spanish and modern – think a colour palette of green, plaster pink and terracotta – with exposed brick, an open kitchen and lots of beautiful wood. Legado opens on August 28, 1C Montacute Yards, 185-186 Shoreditch High Street, E1 6HU,
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Legado: Michelin-starred Nieves Barragán to open new Spanish restaurant in Shoreditch
The latest high-profile restaurant to open in the new Shoreditch development under the Overground line is Legado, a new Spanish concept from Nieves Barragán Mohacho and JKS Restaurants. Legado, which means 'legacy', is next door to the new Singburi, while the Standard understands another big opening is planned nearby (we cannot say yet, but hold tight). Barragán is best known for her Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurant Sabor, a multi-floor restaurant that spans Spain's regional cuisine. Legado, the Standard was told, 'is set to move beyond the familiar, allowing the wider ingredients, lesser-known dishes, regional culinary traditions and the Spanish artisans to take centre stage.' The 60-cover restaurant – with a further 16 at the counter – will serve tapas and pintxos that shine a light on specific producers, ingredients and Spanish traditions. Lamb, for example, will come from Lechazo de Castilla y León (an origin-protected producer), while suckling pig is to be sourced from the award-winning farm Tabladillo el Cochinillo in Segovia, a province north of Madrid, Fish will be treated much the same, with a menu that traverses Spanish coastlines. Dishes are to include crystal Mediterranean prawns with smoked paprika and Moscatel vinegar, and confit lobster with chilli and garlic served on a base of thinly sliced potatoes. Both will come topped with a runny fried egg. As for vegetarian dishes, the most interesting could be the 'Legado sandwich', made with Swiss chard, cecina, and smoked cheese fried in breadcrumbs, which Barragán remembers her grandmother making for her in the Basque region. 'Spain's food heritage is incredible and has rightly deserved recognition in London and globally,' she said. 'Its colours, tastes, and smells are rooted deeply within me. However, many dishes I love, I have never seen outside the country and want to bring them and even more to London.' As for wines, diners should expect a 150-bin list celebrating Spanish vintages, and 'seasonally changing vegetable and fruit-based cocktails served chilled but without ice.' There will be three-sip drinks, short drinks being the fashion in London right now. The restaurant will look Spanish and modern – think a colour palette of green, plaster pink and terracotta – with exposed brick, an open kitchen and lots of beautiful wood. Legado opens on August 28, 1C Montacute Yards, 185-186 Shoreditch High Street, E1 6HU,
Forbes
16-07-2025
- Forbes
Eating Around Madrid Flourishing Food Scene
The vast Mercado de San Miguel is one of several markets for eating at counters in Madrid. There are about 14,000 restaurants in Madrid, and while you can find any kind of ethnic eatery, from sushi bar to a biergarten, the vast majority are Spanish and very traditional. As I've written in other articles, the city also has a cutting edge fine dining segment in restaurants––many with odd names, like DiverXo, DStage and Smoked Room––but I find it hard not indulge my appetite for the true classics Madrid offers in profusion, from Iberian hams and roast baby lamb to paella and suckling pig. And despite being landlocked in the middle of Spain, there are many good seafood places that draw from the huge Mercamadrid market—second only to Tokyo's in size. There is another market, Mercado de San Miguel (among others) that is an exhaustive education in small plates of food, including myriad tapas, with eighteen different sections and counters spotlighting charcuterie, baked goods, chicken, seafood and paella. It would take a week or more to eat your way through everything, which is always thronged, now with more tourists than ever.A small din ing room is on the other side of a bodega tapas bar at La Catapa. A new discovery for me (though it's no news to the city's gourmands) out in the Retiro neighborhood is LA CATAPA (Calle de Menorca 14), on one side a very popular bodega tapas bar and to the left a small, eight-table restaurant with tile floors, burgundy banquettes and white stucco walls. Chef-owner Miguel Angel Jimenez is well worth consulting for the night's specials and a wine from the impressively deep good list. Begin perhaps with the cured tuna belly and don't miss the 'famosa' egg tortilla with potatoes. There's oxtail with its marrow, and a plate of rice and mushrooms. At least eight seafood dishes are on the menu, including mussels in a red curry broth, and navajas (razor clams) grilled a la plancha. The beef is very good here, available as steak tartare 'La Catapa.' Raw tuna is a fine appetizers at La Catapa. MARISQUERIA RAFA (Calle de Narváez 68) was opened in 1958 by brothers Rafael and Rodrigo Andrés, first as a small bar, and today, it is a large establishment managed by their sons Rafael and Miguel. You should begin with some white anchovies in olive oil or fried crunchy Andalusian calamari with tomato. Then have the wild rodaballo(turbot) seared on the plancha grill or the bogavante lobster. Finish with bizcocho borracho, a dessert of 'drunken biscuit,' soaked in rum. Also nice to know is that Rafa is open Sunday nights. Marisqueria Rafa is known for its excellent seafood and is one of few restaurants open o n Sunday ... More for bars are rife throughout Madrid and to choose one over the other merely means you are walking through one neighborhood or another. CERVECERIA SANTA ANA, set on the Plaza de Santa Ana, was once a convent to Carmelite nuns, and has been a cerverceria since 1985. Its tapas selection is broad and varies, but I also like that there is a good menu of heartier plates of food, like the tripe stew. For more squeamish tastes there's a platter of sweet green peppers cooked in olive oil and baked ham cut thick and covered with boiled potatoes. For dessert the pastelito of torrone meringue and hazelnuts is light a delicious. The place stays open till 1:30 AM. (By the way, Santa Ana is two doors down from the tourist-flocked Cerveceria Alemana made famous by Ernest Hemingway and his matador friends.) At Cerverceria Santa Ana there is very good tapas in addition to heartier Spanish fare. One of the great pleasures of outdoor dining in Madrid––provided it's under an umbrella in the scorching summer heat––is to sit at one of the restaurants than ring the gorgeous Plaza Major. They are all large, have much the same menu and I wouldn't be surprised if the same owner ran several of them. You do have to ignore the hawkers outside, nut once you sit down, whether it's for a glass of sangria or a full meal, you'll be satisfied throughout the afternoon or evening––especially if there's a moon rising. I went alone and enjoyed watching the throngs in the Plaza from CERVECERIA TINEO, beginning with a cold beer and a plate of grilled langoustines and following with a paella a la Valenciana. The bill came to 45 euros. Paella is available for a single diner at Cerverceria Tineo on the Plaza Major. I mentioned that you can get any kind of food in Madrid, and, having gone six days without any pasta, found a delightful Italian place named TOSCANA, just off the Gran Via in the theater district. It was a handsome, two-level spot with very friendly staff where my friend and I enjoyed cannelloni with two sauces and a very welcome, multi-layered lasagna. They also offer more than two dozen pizzas and a good Italian wine list.
Forbes
10-07-2025
- General
- Forbes
Spain's Paella Honors Its Roots In The Rice-Growing Region Of Valencia
Valencian paella, cooked over a wood fire When it comes to dining in Spain's Valencia region, there is one humble ingredient that has pride of place. Rice is at the center of the area's cuisine and appears in many of its recipes, even earning its own section on some local menus. It is also the star of paella, Valencia's most famous culinary offering and the dish that is most closely identified with all of Spain. (Sorry, gazpacho and croquetas. Talk to me when you get your own emoji.) While paella has traveled far beyond Spain's borders—often in versions that are blasphemous to the locals—this region is its ancestral home. The Grain That Reigns Supreme Located on the country's eastern coast, the Comunitat Valenciana, as it is known in the local language, is divided into three provinces—Valencia, Alicante and Castellón—with the region's eponymous capital being the third largest city in Spain after Madrid and Barcelona. But in addition to the provincial capitals of Valencia, Alicante and Castellón de la Plana, and the pretty little beach towns along the Costa Blanca, Valencia is also home to thousands of farms. While many of them cultivate vegetables and fruits (¡Hola, Valencia oranges!), the attention-grabbing jewel of this landscape is the crop that comes from L'Albufera, Spain's largest lake. A mosaic of coastal wetlands surrounded by marshes, dunes and paddy fields, L'Albufera produces the short-grain rice that is essential to making a true Valencian paella. Valencia's Albufera wetlands, with an albuferenc (the lagoon's traditional type of boat) in the ... More foreground This lagoon is the source of approximately 15% of the rice consumed by Spaniards. Three varieties dominate here—senia, bomba and albufera—each with slightly different qualities, but all are notable for their ability to absorb double or triple their volume in liquid. It's this attribute that makes them the perfect vehicle for paella valenciana, highlighting whatever flavors are added during the cooking process. A true paella connoisseur will always taste the rice first; the other ingredients are there to support this tiny little diva. Paella Is A Collective Delight The word 'paella' refers to the flat round pan in which the dish is cooked, so the name gets applied to rice that's combined with a range of miscellaneous ingredients. You will see the term used to describe recipes that include chorizo, garlic, seafood and other elements, which would be sacrilegious in a true Valencian paella. In fact, locals use a different (and pejorative) term for the other versions: arroz con cosas, or rice with things. Paella valenciana should feature chicken, rabbit, garrofó (a kind of butter bean), ferradura (flat green beans), tomatoes, saffron, smoked paprika and salt, although some valencianos will also add artichokes, snails and/or duck. Paella pans for sale in Valencia Paella began as a practical way to feed workers on area farms, and its preparation relied on ingredients that were readily available. To maximize its flavor, paella valenciana is cooked over an open flame, preferably using orangewood from local citrus orchards as well as some charred rosemary sprigs, to lend the herb's strong aromatic notes. The shallow pan allows these scents to permeate the rice and creates the ever-important socarrat—a golden, slightly crusty texture that is pure savory deliciousness and that distinguishes paella valenciana from the mushy rice casseroles you'll find is many restaurants outside the region. Paella's consumption has long been a collective experience, a reflection of rural communities that were built on cooperation among neighbors. Folks gathered around the pan, spoon in hand, with each person eating from their own section of the large pizza-shaped vessel. Even today, the dish retains these communal roots and is often the star of a big Sunday lunch or festive gathering of family and friends. Where to Eat Paella Valenciana In Valencia, there seem to be nearly as many paella restaurants as there are grains of rice in each flat pan. An excellent place to enjoy true paella valenciana is Nou Racó, which is located in the Albufera lagoon, about 10 kilometers from the city's center. The restaurant complex includes a preserved barraca, a traditional Valencian farmhouse (a white structure with a steeply sloped roof covered in reeds). While you can reach Nou Racó in a car, it's much nicer to travel the last stretch of the journey by water, taking a short ride in an albuferenc, the small traditional boats that navigate these wetlands. Along the way, the ornithology-obsessed in your group can try to spot some of the 350 bird species that reside in or migrate through the area. If you'd prefer to stay within Valencia's city limits, there's the legendary Casa Carmela. Founded by José Belenguer in the early 1920s as a beach shack, it's now run by the fourth generation of his family and turns out an average of 25 paellas per meal service. Family tradition is also central to Restaurante Levante, founded by the parents of chef Rafael Vidal over 50 years ago. His forebears became famous for their excellent paella, famously serving it to the King of Spain in 1976, and Vidal has helped the dish reach an even wider audience since then. When celebrity chef José Andrés first opened his Leña in NYC, a restaurant focused on open-fire cooking, he flew Vidal over to train the team on proper paella-making technique. Although Vidal's family now has a second Levante location in downtown Valencia, history buffs will want to drive a half-hour northwest to the village of Benisanó, to dine at the original outpost. Going Beyond Paella The fideuà at Nou Racó in the Albufera lagoon In a rice-growing powerhouse like Valencia, however, paella is only one of many recipes to feature the crop. To name just a few others, there's arroz a banda, where the fish that's used to make stock in which to cook the rice is served separately from the cooked grains; arroz del senyoret, a seafood and rice dish; and arroz negro, where the grains are tinted black with squid ink. If you get tired of rice (shhh, don't tell the locals), there's also fideuà, a close relative of paella in which the short-grain rice is substituted with small skinny noodles that crisp up slightly when cooked. (Nou Racó serves up an excellent version of this dish.) Would you prefer a soupier rice dish with seafood? Head south for a bowl of caldero. Although some associate caldero with the neighboring region of Murcia, you can find excellent versions in the Valencian province of Alicante, particularly on the island of Tabarca. Like paella, caldero takes its name from the vessel in which it is cooked—a large soup pot, where seafood, tomatoes and rice are layered with fish broth and ñoras (small, round sun-dried peppers) to produce a result that is more than the sum of its parts. In the coastal town of Benidorm, the seafood restaurant Posada del Mar has been ladling up richly flavored bowls of caldero for more than four decades, served with a fluffy mound of garlicky egg-free alioli on the side. (Dollop generously.) Grab a seat at one of the restaurant's oceanfront tables, order a crisp glass of white wine and a bowl of caldero, and exhale. [But wait! There's much more to Valencian cuisine than rice. Check back in a few days for the second installment on the area's most emblematic culinary offerings.]
The Guardian
10-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
José Pizarro's recipe for courgette and almond gazpacho
Gazpacho has been part of Spanish kitchens for centuries. Long before tomatoes arrived from the Americas, it was made with bread, garlic, olive oil and almonds, which have always been part of our food culture. It began as field food, crushed by hand in mortars and eaten by workers under the sun with nothing but stale bread and whatever else they had to hand alongside. No blenders, no chill time, just instinct and hunger. This version, with courgette and basil, goes back to that idea: take what's around you and make something good out of it. Simple roots, but full of life. Prep 5 minSteep 10 min+ Cook 10 min Chill 1 hr+Serves 4-6 2 medium courgettes ½ cucumber Sea salt and black pepper 80g stale white bread 75ml whole milk 100g toasted marcona almonds 1 garlic clove, peeled 2 tsp sherry vinegar 1 handful basil leaves, plus extra to garnishExtra-virgin olive oil, to finish Coarsely grate the courgettes and cucumber into a large bowl, sprinkle with sea salt, then tip into a sieve, set it over the bowl and leave to steep for a good 10 to 15 minutes. Meanwhile, break up the bread into a medium bowl, add the milk and leave to soak. Squeeze out any excess liquid from the salted courgette and cucumber mix, then tip them into a blender. Add the soaked bread and any milk it hasn't soaked up, then add the almonds, garlic, vinegar and 500ml cold water. Blitz smooth, then taste to check the seasoning – you shouldn't need any extra salt, but a touch of ground black pepper may be in order. Add the basil leaves and blitz again. Pour the soup into a large jug or bowl, then cover and chill in the fridge for at least an hour. Once chilled, check the consistency of the soup – if you feel it's a bit too thick, add up to 200ml more cold water, to loosen. Ladle into bowls, top with a good drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and a grind or two of black pepper, finish with a scattering of extra basil leaves and serve.
