[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: September 8, 2015]
Little more than a year had passed since my first trip to Madrid and Granada, and here I was again. Didn't lose my luggage this time. My diary notes for the first couple of days are desultory, but no matter, because I repeated the central city tapas bar excursions of the previous year. Read that here.
But after a day or two of acclimatization, I climbed aboard the restaurant train.
First up, classic of classics, the Sobrino de Botín, believed to be the oldest restaurant in the world, occupying several floors of a sixteenth century building on the old Calle de Cuchilleros. The specialty is pork, so we started with manitas de cerdo--tender little pig feet from suckling pigs. The other specialty is lamb, so we followed with cordero asado. A bottle of 2001 Luis Canelas Rioja with all that, and some rice pudding to finish. Then over to a bar on Plaza Santa Ana for some cheese.
The next day, a round trip to Toledo, the mediaeval hill-top which might have been designed by F.W. Murnau, and was made for El Greco. It's an easy train and bus ride from Madrid. We prowled the cathedral, and took a tour on a little train-cum-tram which cuts out some of the hill climbing.
Lunch was serendipitous: we encountered the rather grand Casa Aurelio by chance, and gingerly took our seats in very casual tourist clothes in the rather splendid dining room. The famous local partridge on the menu had pulled us in, so we had it served two ways--as an escabeche (kind of pickled), and estofado (stewed in a rich sauce). There was a torchon of foie too, and some marzipan dessert afterwards. As it was lunchtime, cava seemed called for.
The big dinner of the trip was booked for Santceloni, Santi Santamaria's grand hotel restaurant on the cusp of its second Michelin star. If you've come all that way, you might as well eat the Grand Menu--and take a cripplingly expensive bottle of Unico, the 1989, as accompaniment.
Amuses
Gazpacho with tomato confit
Raviolo of buey de mar, sherry and pumpkin sauces
Sautéed cèpes with quail eggs
Caviar, onion cream, blini
Bass with tripe sauce and with cuttlefish sauce
Foie gras with strawberries
Cheeses
Sorbets
Fresh strawberries, cold custard
Chocolates, petits fours
A meal that hit all the luxury high notes quite distinctly, and the joy of seeing servers hoist a vast wooden table of cheeses around the room. The crab raviolo, the mushrooms with quail eggs, the two presentations of bass. It was good stuff. Let's not try to remember what it cost.
Home for Labor Day.
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