Restaurants

Cañitas Maite

16

• Kitchen

  Outstanding

• Service

  Outstanding

• Cellar

  Remarkable

• Decoration / atmosphere

  Remarkable

• Ibáñez House (Albacete)

• Average Price: 20-60 euros

• Spanish Cuisine

With a solid training and an improper maturity of his 23 years, the young cooks of this Albacete dining room give a resounding return to tradition

"They will go even further", pointed out Fernando Point

in the first review of this restaurant in the Albacete town of Casa Ibáñez that appeared less than two years ago on the pages of Metrópoli.

in the kitchen of the hotel restaurant of the former's family, helping out on weekends while they finished their studies and trained in temples such as Atrio and Casas Marcial, the first, and Mugaritz and Andreu Genestra, the second.

: now that they are in full-time practice, they have gone to much more.

And, paraphrasing the teacher,

.

With a solid technical training and an improper maturity of the 23 years they have,

.

And without limiting themselves to the fashionable kilometer 0, they look for the best possible genre.

Thus,

;

the fish come from O'Grove, Ribeiro and Vigo;

the

and well matured;

the vegetables are organic from farmers in the area and the aromatic herbs and green pineapples are collected by themselves in the Júcar mountain range.

All of this translates into two very different menus, the tapas menu and the pure product menu

.

The first, with more than moderate prices (for 20 euros it is possible to pay a full-fledged tribute), is playful and highly satisfactory and it

.

Hazelnut and foie cut, impeccable, elegant and very clean.

Manchego cheese fritter, sweet.

, with a perfect balance between sheep's milk and ham and a formidable texture between creamy and liquid, perfectly battered in panko.

The Patatas Bravas waffle is crispy and tasty and it just lacks a bit of joy (that is, a bit of spice) to be one of the

-

of the house.

The sweet fried suckling pig's ear is so fine that even non-gourmand fans can eat it.

The

octopus and colorá butter

is indispensable, just like the very successful sea and mountains represented by the suckling pig and crayfish ssam.

Katsu sando of bluefin tuna and roast beef rib roll are two options as "main" tapas.

If the tapas menu is playful, fun and very enjoyable, the

menu

.

Risk, balance, criteria ... Attention to the succession of platazos that make up the tasting menu:

pil-pil

;

green chick with hake cococha;

artichoke with jowl Joselito;

Txipirón de ría with black onion (perhaps a bit past sweet due to the excessive reduction of liliaceae);

crayfish from the estuary with an intense rooster juice;

black grouper with mounted collagen;

pigeon rice with chanterelles;

;

Sheep cream flan with pine ice cream and Manchego cheese with caviar.

Separate paragraph deserve

.

The undisputed star is the

.

From Huelva, the crustacean is presented open and smeared with an oil in which various Iberian sausages have been macerated.

One of the great dishes of 2020, almost at the same height the Dénia prawn in fig leaf papillote, which extols the infinite nuances of the already queen of the Mediterranean.

And the

with ripened pepper, impeccably roasted and with a garnish that almost overshadows the main product, because the pepper ends up having a meaty texture.

All the aforementioned dishes are well worth it, but these three, and

.

And we still need to talk about the rice dishes that, like everything in this restaurant, are out of the league, horse and king.

To start with, we use

and polished to 60 percent (to extract its purity, as if it were going to make sake) and all are of a grain of height, We find one of kid, with the background made with the juice itself and topped with some chops and some garlic sprouts.

Another is cutlet, with a bottom prepared with matured bone and beef fat and which is "accompanied" with slices of meat.

And, finally, the sailor, with squid and carabinieri.

.

It is evident that in Cañitas Maite you eat very well.

But, with food being its main asset and attraction, a restaurant is more than food and if those factors did not accompany ... For example, a cheerful and bright dining room, presided over by a huge bottle rack and dressed with

.

Or a

, young, well-trained and better prepared, that creates the kitchen of chefs, defends it and transmits it to the tables.

Or a varied wine list, which still has room for improvement, with a notable presence of labels from the area, Manchuela, and an unexpected and always remarkable offer of generous ones.

Or a unique, original tableware that plays with natural elements, which is made for you by a local artisan.

And it will not stop here,

, rightly classified as one of the most beautiful towns in Spain.

But that will be in the medium term future.

A future that, considering his age and talent, has to be his.

According to the criteria of

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