The Bar at Marisquería Rafa: A Five Dalí POM (Persistence of Memory) Melting Watch Award Experience

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Gerry Dawes toasting with Champagne at the Bar at  Marisquería Rafa, Madrid.

Photograph by John Sconzo (Docsconz:  Musings on Food & Life)

 Gerry Dawes's Persistence of Memory* (Salvador Dalí) Melting Watch Awards.

This article on Marisquería Rafa in Madrid, is the first post in what will be a series of articles on restaurants and tapas bars from around Spain that I think, from my very personal experience, deserve Five of Five Dalí POM (Persistence of Memory) Melting Watch Award pins.  I frankly don’t give a damn about Michelin ratings, Repsol or any of the rest.  I have been traveling and eating and drinking wine all over Spain for nearly 50 years and I have been to most of the restaurants in these articles multiples times.  Yes, I am influenced by the friendly relationships I have with many of the chefs and owners of these establishments and I take into consideration the downside for those who might not be connected in some of the restaurants I am writing about.  Nonetheless, I have had repeated Five Melting Watch experiences in all the places I am going to write about.  

Rafael Andrés & María José Orbe with Gerry Dawes at the Bar at Rafa.

   Photo copyright by Harold Heckle.

Though this list of establishments receiving my highest rating does not include all the eating experiences I plan to include in this series, among these establishments are the following:

1.    Extebarri in the Basque Country has refined grilling a magical art form, so almost ever dish you get is something special.

2.    Elkano and Kaia in the fishing village of Getaria is the place to go for the best txangurro (spider crab scrape from the shell, put back into the shell with leeks, sherry, brandy and breadcrumbs and passed under the broiler and whole rodaballo (turbot) cooked outside over a wood fire.

3.    El Crucero, in the overlooked town of Corella, in southern Navarra, which is a vegetable region.  The creative chef, Nabor Jiménez does dishes such as sliced, fried small artichoke hearts with foie gras (have a sweet Aliaga Late Harvest muscatel with dish, since only sweet wines don’t clash with artichokes. 

4.    La Taberna del Gourmet, María José San Román’s incredible tradtional cuisine restaurant in Alicante, just a block of the palm-lined Explanada.  The best product, the best technique. Maybe the best tapas restaurant in Spain.   Gambas rojas de Denia, rice dishes, sea urchins, etc.  Whatever is fresh from the market that day.  Coverage of the remarkable GrupoGourmet culinary empire in Alicante, including her Michelin-starred Monastrell, the Tribeca beer and hamburger bar and her son-in-law’s grilled meat restaurant, La Vaquería, El Campello (Playa de San Juan de Alicante).

5.    Casa Elias, in the pueblo of Xinorlet inland in the province of Alicante, for thin-layer arroz cooked in paella pans over a grape vine cuttings fire. 

6.    D’Berto in O Grove (Pontevedra), Galicia.  Certainly among the greatest shellfish restaurants in the world. 

7.    Casa Bigote and Bar Bigote in Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Andalucía.  Exceptional seafood, friend fish, composed fish dishes and those wonderful Langostinos (prawns) de Sanlúcar, fresh off the plancha grill. 

8.    Quim de la Boquería in la Boquería market in Barcelona.  Put yourself in Quim Marquéz’s hands for a five-star dining experience on a taburete (barstool).  Plump gambas al ajillo, among the best in Spain.  Lovely ceviche de corvina with mango with Juve i Camps Pinot Noir Rosat (rosé) Cava.  Fried tiny fish, chanquetes con huevo frito, with a fried egg.  You can also go to front of the market to the legendary Pinotxo and have Xuchos, a wonderful pastry, and Calamarsets Saltats amb Fesos de Santa Pau (baby squid with tiny white Santa Pau (a village north of Barcelona on the Mediterranean.

9. Ganbara, in the old quarter of San Sebastián, has numerous varieties of mushrooms.  Have an assortment grilled, use a raw egg yolk as the sauce and you will be in mushroom heaven. 

10. Madrid, on Sunday nights most restaurants are closed, so I go to two places.  First, Marisquería Rafa, in the other side of Retiro Park in the Ibiza Metro area, where Rafa Andrés serves one of the best salpicónes, either with lobster or with shellfish in vinaigrette, one of the best ensaladillas rusas (“Russian” potato salad), wonderful jamón Ibérico and other dishes such as beberechos (cockles).    

After having some of Rafa’s dishes as appetizers, I usually go to Casa Lucio on Cava Baja in the Old Quarter of Madrid and eat setas a la plancha (plancha-grilled mushrooms with garlic, for which I request a raw egg yolk or two as a sauce, and huevos rotos con patatas (eggs “broken” over friend potatoes) and maybe a steak brought out on a sizzling platter.  Yes, Casa Lucio is getting my Five Dalí POM (Persistence of Memory) Melting Watch Award as well.  If I am in Madrid on a Sunday night, 99% of those nights I will end up at either Casa Lucio or Marisquería Rafa.   Yes, I know there are supposed to be better places for traditional Castilian food in Madrid than Lucio and Rafa and I know a lot of them, but both places are home and family to me and it would be hard to beat the overall experiences at either place. 

Marisquería Rafa
Calle de Narváez, 68
28009 Madrid, Spain
Phone: +34 915 73 10 87
  

 Juanjo Mateos Fornelio with mariscos at Marisquería Rafa, Madrid. 
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2016.
   

Marisquería Rafa, which has been in business since 1958, began for me more than twenty years ago as one of those Sunday nights-in-Madrid-when-everything-else-is-closed experiences and, over the period of a decade, became a regular stop on my prowl of Madrid restaurants.  And, because Casa Rafa was reliable I booked a couple of gastronomic tour groups that I was taking around Spain into the upstairs dining room, where I could bring special wines in and talk to my fellow travellers about them over lunch or dinner.

I began to establish the relationship I have today with Rafa Andrés, who owns Rafa with his cousin Miguel Angel Andrés, who alternates between being Chef and running the front of the house.

 Gerry and Rafa having a serious discussion about some item of gastronomic importance.   Maybe I am bugging Rafa to triple the size of the small entry way bar area, which might seat a half dozen people on one side, with maybe room for three-to-four more patrons at a side bar.

Though I have been going to Rafa for more than two decades, my afición really began to ratchet up, beginning with the advent of the Madrid Fusión Gastronomic Summit in 2003, which is held in Madrid every January.   The foreign chef and press contingent always arrives on Sunday the day before the event begins, so I began to look for places where I could take visiting journalists and chefs for one of the only free nights on the town in Madrid.  Thus, Marisquería Rafa and Casa Lucio, both being open on Sunday nights, when many other restaurants are closed, became my go to places to take foreign gastronomic luminaries to experience traditional Spanish cuisine before they began the vortex of cocina de vanguardia Ferran Adrià-inspired creative fusion cuisine on Monday morning.  

 Tapas bar hopping with four great friends in Madrid, Juan Suárez, former Madrid Fusión Director Esmeralda Capel (she retired), cook-cookbook author-culinary educator Gabriela Llamas and British journalist Harold Heckle, at Marisquería Rafa, Sept. 10. 2019.

  Amercian journalists Arthur Bovino, John Sconzo and George Semler at the Bar at Rafa. 
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2015.

I began to rally groups of invitees to Madrid Fusión to these nights on the town.  Over the years they have included Chefs Alfred Portale of Gotham Bar & Grill (NYC), Michael Ginor (Hudson Valley Foie Gras), Ken Oringer (Toro, Boston), Jonathan Benno (then Chef of Per Se, NYC), Santa Fe’s Mark Miller, author Harold McGee, Ruth Reichl (then editor of Gourmet magazine), Jeffrey Steingarten (food critic of Vogue), Colman Andrews (Managing Editor, The Daily Meal and author of Catalan Cuisine), journalists Arthur Bovino, George Semler and John Sconzo (Docsconz: Musings on Food & Life). 

Several Madrid Fusión Gastronomic Summit attendees at the bar at Marisquería Rafa.  Among them Anne E. McBride of the Culinary Institute of America, John Sconzo (Docsconz) and Catalan events promoter, Santi Mas de Xaxàs, CEO and Founder of HuddleApp.  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2016.

But, the year that the Bar at Rafa legend began to kick into high gear was 2006, when the likes of Charlie Trotter, Norman Van Aken, Tetsuya Wakuda and Don Alfonso Iaccarino were all at Madrid Fusión.  That year, I arranged to meet them all–three of the chefs with their significant others with them, along with star Spanish food journalist, Juanma Bellver–at the Bar at Rafa for some stellar shellfish tapas, a bit of bubbly and some conversation. 

 

  Gerry Dawes, Tetsuya Wakuda, Rochelle Smith, Livia Iaccarino, Janet Van Aken, Charlie Trotter and Norman Van Aken.  Photo by Don Alfonso Iaccarino.

Casa Rafa would be the first stop, then we were going on to Sergi Arola’s new place.  Still, between the plates of jamón Ibérico de bellota, gambas rosas, salpicón de mariscos and Champagne, we managed to run up an impressive bill.  

Norman Van Aken pulled out an American Express Platinum card and tried to pay the bill.  Charlie Trotter trumped him with TWO American Express Platinum cards, then Tetsuya Wakuda pushed them both aside and plopped down his American Express BLACK card and paid the bill. 

 Spanish journalist Juanma Bellver, the late Charlie Trotter and his great friend Chef Norman Van Aken at the bar at Marisquería Rafa.  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2006.

Over the years, with or without celebrity chefs in two–more often it is talented foreign journalists who join me on these jaunts–Casa Rafa had become one of my favorite places in Madrid.  Usually with friends, sometimes alone with my friend Rafa Andrés, drifting in and out as he fulfills his duties as maitre’d and cashier, I corner one or more of the half dozen seats at the small bar and the parade of superb quality product-driven begins.

The All-Star Food Gallery at Casa Rafa

(All photos copyright 2017 by Gerry Dawes; gerrydawes@gmail.com)

 Rafa Andrés, who owns Rafa with his cousin Miguel Angel Andrés Poyo, alternates between being Chef and running the front of the house.  Miguel Angel with a plate of gambas rebozadas with romesco sauce (deep-fried, tempura-like battered shrimp).

 Rafa Andrés at the bar with his prized salpicón de bogavante, lobster melange in vinaigrette.

 Rafa's salpicón de bogavante, lobster melange in vinaigrette.

Employee at Rafa shows off a huge centollo, spider crab.

Ham cutter at Casa Rafa slicing a jamón Ibérico de bellota (ham from acorn-grazed pigs) from Joselito in Guijuelo, Salamanca.

Plate of Jamón Ibérico de bellota (ham from acorn-grazed pigs) from Joselito in Guijuelo, Salamanca at Casa Rafa.

 My long-time friend Gabriella Llamas at a table on the sidewalk terrace at Casa Rafa having the house ensaladilla Rusa (Russian potato salad with ventresca de bonito, bonito belly tuna), which has been proclaimed one of the ten best ensaladillas in Spain. 

 Zamburiñas (small scallops with their coral, the delcious orange part that is always stripped away in America), tapas bar hopping with four great friends in Madrid, Juan Suárez, former Madrid Fusión Director Esmeralda Capel (she retired), Gabriela Llamas and British journalist Harold Heckle, at Marisquería Rafa, Sept. 10. 2019.

Almejas a la marinera, superb clams in a light sauce, at Marisquería Rafa.

 Boquerones en vinagre, fresh anchovies dressed in vinegar and oil at Marisquería Rafa.

 Percebes, prized Galicia goose barnacles, that taste of the essence of the sea, at Marisquería Rafa.

Rafa's salpicón de langostinos, exceptional prawns in vinaigrette.

 Espardenyas, rare "Royal" sea cucumbers, from Catalunya, an expensive and prized delicacy in Spain, at Rafa.

 Angulas, baby eels caught in estuaries in northern Spain, another rare, expensive and legendary Spanish delicacy at at Marisquería Rafa.

 American journalist Arthur Bovino doing justice to his share of angulas, baby eels caught in estuaries in northern Spain, another rare, expensive and legendary Spanish delicacy at Marisquería Rafa.
 

  Fried salmonetes, excellent small red mullet, at Marisquería Rafa.

 Langostinos cocidos, steamed prawns, at Marisquería Rafa.


 
  Exquisite gambas rosas de Denia at Marisquería Rafa.

 Exquisite gambas rosas de Denia at Marisquería Rafa done on the plancha grill with sea salt.

  Exquisite gambas rosas de Denia at Marisquería Rafa done on the plancha grill with sea salt.

 

  A pair of exquisite gambas rosas de Denia at Marisquería Rafa done on the plancha grill and served on a brick of sea salt.

My fiancee Kay Balun with a pair of exquisite gambas rosas de Denia at Marisquería Rafa done on the plancha grill and served on a brick of sea salt.

It is not all seafood at Casa Rafa, mollejas de cordero (lamb sweetbreads), served with a bottle of Décima, a lovely Ribeira Sacra Mencía-based red wine made by my friend José Manuel Rodríguez, an artisan grape farmer-winemaker, who is the only viticulturist in Spain who is the President of his denominación de origen (Ribeira Sacra).

Chuletas de cordero, baby lamb chops with fried potatoes at Casa Rafa, also with a bottle of Décima.

My long-time friend, Juan Suárez, lives near Rafa and sometimes meets me at the bar for a glass of vino and a tapa or two.   Even though Marisquería Rafa is one of the best seafood restaurants in Madrid, it is still somewhat of a neighborhood hangout in the well-to-do barrio beyond Madrid's Retiro Park.

Constructive comments are welcome and encouraged.

 

If you enjoy these blog posts, please consider a contribution to help me continue the work of gathering all this great information and these photographs for Gerry Dawes's Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel. Contributions of $5 and up will be greatly appreciated. Contributions of $100 or more will be acknowledged on the blog. Please click on this secure link to Paypal to make your contribution.

 

Text and photographs copyright by Gerry Dawes©2021.  Using photographs without crediting Gerry Dawes©2021 on Facebook.  Publication without my written permission is not authorized.

 

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  Shall deeds of Caesar or Napoleon ring
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?

 

Poem by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington,

in the courtyard of the Hispanic Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York City.

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In 2019, again ranked in the Top 50 Gastronomy Blogs and Websites for Gastronomists & Gastronomes in 2019 by Feedspot. (Last Updated Oct 23, 2019) 

"The Best Gastronomy blogs selected from thousands of Food blogs, Culture blogs and Food Science blogs in our index using search and social metrics. We’ve carefully selected these websites because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality information."  

36. Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel

 
About Gerry Dawes

My good friend Gerry Dawes, the unbridled Spanish food and wine enthusiast cum expert whose writing, photography, and countless crisscrossings of the peninsula have done the most to introduce Americans—and especially American food professionals—to my country's culinary life." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019

Gerry Dawes was the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)

Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

 

Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com 

Culinary Insider's Adventures in Spain with Gerry Dawes. Join a true expert who has led such figures as Chefs Mark Miller, Michael Lomonaco, Thomas Keller, Mark Kiffin, Michael Chiarello, Baseball Great Keith Hernandez and many more.

 

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Gerry Dawes with Chef Tetsuya Wakuka, Charlie Trotter's wife Rochelle, Lidia Iaccarino of Ristorante Don Alfonso (Italy), Janet Van Aken, Charlie Trotter and Norman Van Aken at Marisquería Rafa, Madrid.  Photo by Alfonso Iaccarino.

 

I have planned and led tours for such culinary stars as Chefs Thomas Keller, Mark Miller, Mark Kiffin, Michael Lomonaco, Michael Whiteman (Joseph Baum Michael Whiteman Restaurant Consultants), Rozanne Gold, Michael Chiarello and such personalities as baseball great Keith Hernandez and I have led on shorter excursions and given detailed travel advice to many other well-known chefs and personalities such as Danny Meyer, Drew Nieporent, Norman Van Aken, Charlie Trotter, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenberg, Christopher Gross, Rick Moonen, James Campbell Caruso and many others. 

 

Click on title to see entire post.

 

A Remembrance of Charlie Trotter: Tapas Hopping in Madrid

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The world received the sad news today that the great Chef Charlie Trotter, just 54 years old, died today in Chicago.  Since Charlie was one of this country's most important chefs and a fine dining pioneer, a lot will be written about him in the day's to come.  I won't even try to claim that I knew Charlie well or had a real relationship with him.  The few times I did communicate with him, it was through our mutual friend, Chef Norman Van Aken, who was a great buddy of Charlie's.

 
Charlie Trotter & Norman Van Aken at Casa Rafa, Madrid. 
Photo by Gerry Dawes / gerrydawes@aol.com.

I had my close encounter with Charlie one night during Madrid Fusión 2006 and it was a memorable one.  Somehow I rounded up a posse to go on an impromptu tapas hopping excursion one night in Madrid.  The group included Charlie and his then fiancee (later wife) Rochelle Smith, Norman and Janet Van Aken, Tetsuya Wakuda, Spanish journalist Juanma Bellver and Chef Don Alfonso Iacarrino (Don Alfonso 1890, Sant'Agata sui Due Golfi, Naples) and his wife Livia.  We were expected a new place that Catalan Chef Sergi Arola had just opened, but I suggested that we stop first at one of my favorite tapas route places in Madrid, Marisquería Rafa, in the Ibiza neighborhood on the far side of Retiro Park. 

Madrid, Marisquería Rafa. Photo by Gerry Dawes / gerrydawes@aol.com.

We all gathered in the bar at Rafa and ran through quite a bit of good seafood tapas and vino and I snapped a number of photographs (and let Alfonso Iaccarino take one of the group with me in it, a shot I have always treasured, even more so after hearing the sad news about Charlie's death).  

 
The group at Marisquería Rafa: (l to r), Gerry Dawes, Tetsuya Wakuda, Rochelle Smith, Livia Iacarrino, Janet Van Aken, Charlie Trotter, Norman Van Aken and Don Alfonso Iacarrino, who took this photo.

After about an hour, we decided it was time to move on.  I was instructed to ask for the bill.  Charlie declared that he was going to pay the bill.   We all offered to chip in but Charlie wouldn't hear it.  But, when he pulled out an AMEX Platinum card to pay, he was met with a challenge by Tetsuya Wakuda, who declared that he was going to pay and pushed his way towards the check.    Charlie began to jockey with Tetsuya for the bill and pulled out a second AMEX Platinum card, laying both on the counter.  Tetsuya slapped down an AMEX Black card, trumping Charlie's two Platinum cards, and he paid the bill, then we all went off to Sergi Arola's place.

 
We finally got to Sergi Arola's newly opened restaurant (now closed): Alfonso Iacarrino, Norman Van Aken, Charlie Trotter, Sergi Arola, a manager at Sergi's place and Tetsuya Wakuda.  Photo by Gerry Dawes / gerrydawes@aol.com. 

Que descanses en paz, Charlie.

  

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“The American writer and town crier for all good Spanish things Gerry Dawes . . .the American connoisseur of all things Spanish . . .” – The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge and The World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese

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"Gerry Dawes, I can't thank you enough for opening up Spain to me." -- Michael Chiarello on Twitter. Chef Chiarello toured northern Spain with me in October 2011 and was just in Barcelona again in January 2013.  He is preparing to open his new Spanish inspired restaurant, Coqueta, at San Francisco's Pier 5 in April.

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"In his nearly thirty years of wandering the back roads of Spain," Gerry Dawes has built up a much stronger bank of experiences than I had to rely on when I started writing Iberia...His adventures far exceeded mine in both width and depth..." -- James A. Michener, author of Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections

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 _________________________________________________________________________________________________  
About Gerry Dawes  

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel  

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

 In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. ". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

 

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series  
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com.

Coming up in less than two weeks: MADRID FUSIÓN 2010, THEATRE OF IDEAS: Preview of the International Summit of Gastronomy Coming Up in Madrid, January 26, 27 & 28

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Ferran Adrià at Madrid Fusión.

Photo Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

For full-screen slide show, double click on lower right corner, 
go to Picasa, click on slide show at left, F11 for full-screen.

__________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel


Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

Spanish Chefs Star at Star Chefs Conference 2009 in New York City: Juan Mari Arzak, Paco Torreblanca & José Andrés (Slide Show)

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Star Chefs International Chefs Conference, New York City, Sept. 20-22, 2009

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(Double click on image to go to larger image, once in Picasa web album push F11 for full screen view.)

_________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009.

 

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series 
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain; Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

Madrid Fusión 2007: A Watershed Moment in Spanish Modern Cuisine History

By Gerry Dawes

Madrid, Spain

January’s eagerly awaited, annual, star-studded culinary conference, Madrid Fusión 2007, may turn out to be a watershed moment in the history of modern Spanish cuisine. The theme of this year’s star-studded conference was La Materia Prima Base de la Creatividad (Product: The Base of Creativity) and it perhaps inadvertently brought into high relief the sea change that I have been seeing and hearing all over the country during more than 20 trips in the past three years, a tidal swing that has grown exponentially over the past year especially. The fifth annual edition of Madrid Fusión, a conference whose focus has been overwhelmingly about innovation and technique, turned out to be something of a tug-a-war dynamic between the two modern Spanish culinary movements, both of which utilize some elements of the other, but whose result is often clearly different.

Cocina de vanguardia, a style whose most famous proponent is super-star chef Ferran Adrià and whose global face has been characterized by such innovations as flavored foams, mango and olive oil caviar, titantium-laced wafers, eggs with a gold leaf veil, perfume-flavored ice creams, etc. is currently being challenged by a more restrained modern Spanish cuisine style that features Spanish product-driven, regional tradition-derived dishes that are not as perplexing to the restaurant goers and are not just user-friendly, they often more delicious and comprehensible as well. In places such as Valencia and Alicante, where some remarkable cooking is going on, this emerging direction, which has been coming of age over the past several years, is beginning to draw serious national and international attention. Call it cocina moderna neo-tradicional for lack of a formal term.

Ferran Adrià, the ultra-famous Catalan culinary star, did his annual “Ferran show” that featured a nine-point manifesto entitled Culinary Relections on the Product (Before Cooking) and including such points as the source, in-depth knowledge, proximity, ecological impact, price, etc. of the ingredients used in cooking. American chef Dan Barber (Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York), who eschews scientific pyrotechnics in his kitchen, presented an elaborate, thoughtful talk describing the great lengths he goes to in developing better agricultural techniques on Blue Hill’s own farm in order to insure the highest quality organically grown, sustainable products for his kitchen. Star Spanish chefs Juan Mari Arzak, Dani Garcia (Calima, Marbella), Quique Dacosta (El Poblet, Denia-Alicante) and London chef Heston Blumenthal all kept the vanguardista flag flying, while Charlie Trotter (Charlie Trotter’s, Chicago), Tetsuya Wakuda (Tetsuya’s, Sydney) and Grant Achatz (Alinea, Chicago) put their unique twists on the theme. But, the headline grabber was three-star chef Santi Santamaria (Raco de Can Fabes in Sant Celoni, outside Barcelona), who appeared for the first time at Madrid Fusión (he disdains culinary conferences) and dropped a culinary mega-bomb, basically denouncing vanguardista cuisine and drawing a five-minute standing ovation.

Somewhere between Santamaria’s somewhat extreme diatribe and the 3-D glasses and candy aromas that were part of Heston Blumenthal’s presentation lies a common ground where Spanish (and global) modern cuisine is heading. Technology, science and equipment will still figure in the evolution of food in Spain, they will just not define and characterize Spanish modern cuisine as they have during the past decade especially, when many dishes often seemed to be the product of high-tech culinary laboratory experiments, rather than focused on getting the best possible food on the plate, something Spanish chefs are particularly gifted at doing.

Super Star Chefs Show Their Stuff at Alimentaria’s BCNVanguardia ‘06

Text & Photographs by Gerry Dawes ©2006

BCNVanguardia ‘06 took place in Alimentaria’s 2006 Restaurama section, a pavilion alongside the two very large Intervin buildings that housed hundreds of Spanish wine producers. Directed by Roser Torras, the BCNVanguardia cooking demonstrations were brilliantly focused. Each day featured star Spanish and international chefs doing friendly mano a mano riffs with designated themes within a main theme such as La Tierra (dishes from the earth, i. e., vegetables, beans, potatoes, pasta, rice, salads; El Mar, fish and shellfish; and Las Viandas, meat, game, and birds (with truffles). Each entire day was devoted to these themes in order and pairs of chefs gave their unique interpretations of how to handle their assigned ingredients.


On the first day, Raúl Aleixandre, of Ca Sento in Valencia, a maestro of rice (and shellfish) dishes was paired with Hiroyuki Kanda of Kanda restaurant in Tokyo. It was refreshing to see both chefs doing traditional rice dishes, using traditional ingredients, Aleixandre with his typical, delicious arroz meloso marinero with squid and shrimp flavored with Spanish pimentón (paprika) and Kanda with a traditional Japanese rice dish with vegetables and mushroom.


Ricardo Gil of Restaurante 33 in Tudela (Navarra) did a preparation with regional ingredients–cardoons, borage and white asparagus–from the vegetable rich region of la Ribera de Navarra (from where many of Spain’s superb jarred and tinned vegetables such as pimientos de piquillo come) and the legendary Bitor Arguinzoniz from Restaurante Etexebarri in the Basque Country showed how he has become one of the world masters of grilling, using with laser-made, micro-mesh skillets to grill vegetables over an open fire.


Charlie Trotter did a deconstruction interpretation of the ubiquitous American Caesar Salad, and Andoni Aduriz of Mugaritz, near San Sebastián, produced a beautiful salad of roasted and raw vegetables, sprouts and even edible flowers with a cheese "dressing."

Andoni Aduriz of Mugaritz (near San Sebastián)

Rounding out the day, to a standing room only crowd, Ferran Adrià presented a master class, A Scientific-Gastronomic Lexicon: A Synthesis of the Philosophy of El Bullí.

Ferran Adrià, El Bullì


Day Two at BCNVanguardia ‘06 was a day from heaven for fish and shellfish lovers. Sergi Arola of La Broche in Madrid (and the new Arola in Barcelona) paired with Elena Arzak of San Sebastián’s three-star Restaurante Arzak, one of the most famous restaurants in Europe, to do their takes on sardines and anchovies. Arola did a modernized dish of smoked sardines with trompeta de la muerte mushrooms and Elena Arzak did a futuristic, artistic dish called Ámbar de anchoas, using anchovies, pimientos de piquillo and Spanish extra virgin olive oil.


Turbot, known as rodaballo in Spain, may reach the apogee of its greatness–as perhaps the world’s finest fish–in several restaurants in Getaria (west of San Sebastián), a remarkable fishing village that is the hometown of Juan Sebastián Elkano, the first man to circumnavigate the globe; the designer Balenciaga; and opera singer Plácido Domingo’s mother. The most notable of these restaurants, owned by members of the same family, are Kaia and Elkano. At BCNVanguardia ‘06, the chef-owners of Elkano, Pedro and Aitor Arregui, demonstrated how to grill a whole turbot over wood charcoal, simple, but with magical results. French chef Gérard Allemandou of Restaurante la Cagouille in Paris fileted his turbot and prepared a more French haute cuisine version.


Pedro and Aitor Arregui

Aitor Aregui of Elkano fileting a grilled turbot.


In the Moluscos y Crustáceos segment, two top chefs, Quique Dacosta of El Poblet in Dènia (Alicante) and Josè Andrès of Jaleo in Washington, D.C. prepared several dishes each. Dacosta did a cherry gazpacho with shrimp and an elaborate avant-garde, Frank Gehry’s Guggeneheim Bilbao Museum-inspired dish called Guggenheim 2006 (oysters with platinum and silver, served at room temperature), a dish that actually included fine silver flakes. Josè Andrès brought over on the plane from United States a selection of American molluscs and shellfish, including softshell crabs and demonstrated a modernized version of New England Clam Chowder that featured clam foam and clam gelatin.



José Andrés

The third day featured some of the greatest chefs in Spain, sometimes alternating with French chefs, intrepreting Las Viandas (meat, game and bird dishes [with truffles]. Carles Gaig of Gaig, one of the star restaurants of Barcelona, paired with the great Manchegan chef, Manuel de la Osa (whom this correspondent had the pleasure the next day of introducing to breakfast at Quim de la Boquería in the fabulous Boquería market). Gaig and de la Osa presented dishes made from veal and from suckling goat. Michelin two-star chef Joan Roca of Can Roca in Girona paired with Cánido López of Segovia’s Mesón Cándido. Each did distinct versions of suckling pig, Roca with a terrine that included garlic and membrillo, López with Cándido’s famous traditional signature dish, cochinillo asada, roast suckling pig so tender that he cuts it with the edge of a plate.

Don Juli Soler, Founder-Partner, El Bullì

Three-star chef Martín Berasategui, whose eponymously named restaurant in Lasarte outside San Sebastián is one of the world’s greatest, did a terrine of veal tongue with foie gras and truffles, while his counterpart, Jean Louis Nomicos of Restaurant Lasserre in Paris, made suckling veal sweetbreads and prawns with grated orange and lemon.



Three-star chef Martín Berasategui
Jean Louis Nomicos of Restaurant Lasserre in Paris

Two-star chef Hilario Arbelaitz of Zuberoa (near San Sebastián) paired with Marco Antonio García of Restaurante Mannix in Campospero (Castilla y León), each doing a lamb dish. Arbelaitz made a confit of lamb with cumin and García demonstrating the classic roast suckling lamb of Castilla y León with crispy skin and succulent, juicy, tender meat. Finishing out this spectacular day were Fermí Puig, Executive Chef of Restaurante Drolma in Barcelona’s Hotel Majestic, and Gérard Besson of Restaurante Gérard Besson in Paris doing creative dishes featuring game birds and truffles.


I have been to few gastronomic conferences more rewarding than BCNVanguardia ‘06, which was especially attractive to me because it featured traditional preparations that highlighted the great food products of Spain, as well as the more trendy avant-guardia and alta cocina dishes. This international, but Mediterranean-focused, gastronomic conference was so good, in fact, that one hopes that BCNVanguardia will become an annual event. I am ready to go back!!