Gastronomy

Martial House

18

• Kitchen

  Outstanding

• Service

  Outstanding

• Cellar

  Outstanding

• Decoration / atmosphere

  Outstanding

• Arriondas (Asturias)

• Average Price: Best Backwards Menu '20: 165 euros (optional pairing: 65 euros).

  Return Trip Menu: 110 euros (optional pairing: 50 euros)

• Creative cuisine

When the car takes the three kilometers of curves of the steep road that connects the town of Arriondas with the village of La Salgar, it is clear that the visit to

not going to be a visit to another restaurant, but to one special.

And the arrival rural mansion where staying confirms this

, with an impressive mountainous landscape around them and

roam freely by the, ahem, asphalt.

The sensation of bucolic and seraphic peace that permeates the atmosphere is transferred to the interior of the various rooms that occupy the two floors of the restaurant, with the wooden beams, the plants, the huge amount of natural elements that decorate the walls and windows from which you can see a relaxing green panorama, very green.

In what was their family home, where they were born, grew up and learned the hotel trade from their parents, who ran a custom catering house, the Manzano brothers, Nacho and Esther have practiced for 27 years, who have turned their dining room into a of the main gastronomic references not only of the Principality but of all Spain.

The formula for its success is as simple as it is diabolically complex: taking the environment and tradition as a starting point, respecting them to the fullest and, without hardly being noticed, transporting them to the most rabid avant-garde.

This 2020 is being a very special year for the house.

In the first place, forced by the damn coronavirus, it has launched an ambitious home delivery service that covers the entire peninsula and allows you to taste, 24 hours after ordering them, some of its most emblematic dishes, such as rice with pitu de caleya, the fabada, rice pudding or croquettes that figure, in their own right, in the national top three (more information on the

website

).

And, secondly, because the restaurant has established a gastronomic formula that is as innovative as it is successful, which consists of presenting the menu the other way around, in such a way that it starts with the main dishes and ends with the starters.

And, in view of the result, Nacho Manzano himself does not rule out that it is a formula that has come to stay.

So, after three excellent appetizers, a house scramble on tortoise, crunchy seeds and summer truffles and a comforting and intense autumn broth, things start off in a big way with rice with pitu de caleya, probably the most popular dish. significant of

.

Memorable.

This is followed by a daring and very tasty crest of corn with its giblets and a version of the Asturian classic Moros y Cristianos (consisting of black beans and white rice), in which the rice is turned into cubes of squid and mole is incorporated.

To close the first chapter, generically called

, a corn and saffron juice with potatoes, beans and a chorizo ​​perfume that evokes, from a total subtlety, atavistic stews.

The second section is called

and consists of two sea and mountain.

The first, tripe cooked in cod skins and tree chickpeas (actually hazelnuts) is of outstanding finesse and elegance.

The second, canned seaweed and kombucha razor with cow tendon, a challenge for the resistance of the taste buds.

It is the turn of

.

The head of fried hake allows you to take a tour of those pieces of marine offal that the fish hides in its head and which are probably the ones with the greatest flavor intensity.

The Cantabrian Sea ribeye is perhaps the most debatable dish on the entire menu, due to the imbalance between the ingredients: the sardine loins and the caviar that crowns them are overshadowed by the marrow that, perhaps due to excess quantity, ends up being be a bit tiresome.

But everything returns to its own devices with the garden on a leaf, where the vegetables maximize the iodized flavor of an XL clam.

The fourth chapter,

, starts with that aforementioned Spanish top three croquette, to which you can only put one but, although very big: it is impossible not to be left wanting more.

The celery curd with cucumber juice and seaweed refreshes and cleans and two pieces of Asturian cheese close the salty part.

Desserts, for now at least, continue to occupy their traditional place

and crown the menu after the salty part.

Summer 2020 play with the fruits of the forest.

Milk and grass, visually beautiful, combines sweet and sour touches.

And the balsamic notes of Pumpkin, physalis, passion fruit and marigold are the finishing touch to a section that is anything but cloying.

Special mention deserves the

, who is very

in the project (among other things, because there is Sandra, Nacho and Esther's sister) and who shows that he believes, and a lot, the kitchen that he is defending and the work of the Murcian sommelier Juan Luis García who, far from seeking personal brilliance, as too many of his colleagues do, bets on

and proposes a trip with interesting stops in Rioja, Cote Rotie, Rías Baixas , Champagne and, above all, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, not in vain García won the Juli Soler Award for Best Sommelier in the Jerez Cup in 2017. In fact, although the pairing option is not usually our favorite, in this case we dare to expressly recommend it.

Getting there costs its own thing but, to paraphrase a certain French guide:

.

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