Tag Archive for: Spain

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Celebrating 20 years of El Gato Negro – cool city prime and brave Pennine gestation

Nine years ago I organised a ‘Tapas Trail’ for the Manchester Food and Drink Festival – a couple of events cherry-picking small plates and wines from seven Spanish restaurants clustering around Deansgate. Even kick-off point the Instituto Cervantes cultural centre was on that very un-Ramblaslike thoroughfare. 

Heady days for Iberian cuisine in the city. Three of the participating restaurants (Iberica, Tapeo and Lunya) have since closed, leaving only La Bandera, Evuna and 30-year-old stalwart El Rincon de Rafa… alongside a certain El Gato Negro Tapas (the Black Cat) that was a cool newcomer back then. As I walked up King Street recently to celebrate its 10th anniversary I passed a shuttered-up Tast Catala, which closed down before Christmas after seven years’ trading. Even the combination of a multi-starred Catalan consultant chef and Pep Guardiola among the backers couldn’t keep it afloat.

Up to 2,000 covers a week rising to 2,500 when the outside terrace is open suggest the equally upmarket El Gato isn’t likely to follow suit any time soon. Ditto the Liverpool branch. Leeds, though, has been turned into a Black Cat Club, as has Habas higher up King Street, the group’s fruitless dip into Lebanese cuisine. Canto, a Portuguese venture, remains in Ancoats, now serving more generic Iberian small plates.

How Ripponden got ‘padronised’ by El Gato’s arrival

So the El Gato Negro mini-empire for 2026 is a far cry from chef patron Simon Shaw’s first bold Spanish step on the Pennine moors back in 2006. I think I’m safe in assuming that until this point the village of Ripponden was a stranger to the padron pepper or grilled octopus tentacle. Its gastronomic epicentre in those days was the annual pork pie competition in the Old Bridge Inn (1307).

It was a less historic terraced pub just along the main road converted by Shaw, a Birmingham-born chef with a fine dining cv, and Chris Williams, his front of house oppo from the duo’s London Harvey Nichols days.

Not quite as remote as it sounds, it was on a bus route. There was always the temptation to hike over the moors, though since these were the days before reliable satnavs on mobiles there might be pitfalls. Hence this memory that I recycled for my Taste of Manchester review of the ‘new’ El Gato on King Street:

“The last time I arrived for a meal at El Gato Negro my trousers were caked almost to the knees in farmyard mire (that’s the polite word). I was with two companions, hopelessly lost and then hopelessly late on our naive cross-moor hike to Simon Shaw’s Spanish restaurant. Finally we stumbled upon a pub, restored ourselves copiously with Timothy Taylor Landlord, got a taxi to El Gato and had an outrageously good fish feast. Simpler times.”

The quality of the food made the transition to Manchester under the new investment from Mills Hill Developments. Some quirky elements didn’t – like the paper menu/place mat, where you ticked boxes to give your order. The ebullient Chris Willams had departed long before, leaving Simon to take centre stage, backed by a remarkably talented kitchen team. Notably Matt Healy and Mark Kemp.

Back in 2009 Matt was Simon’s sous chef on Gordon Ramsey’s F Word when El Gato won ‘Best Local Spanish Restaurant.’ He went on to greater telly fame seven years later when he was runner-up on Masterchef the Professionals and these days runs two casual Forde restaurants in Ilkley and his native Horsforth. 

Ulsterman Mark has pursued his own ‘global small plates’ vision’ at Engine Social Dining in Sowerby Bridge since 2018. I was the first critic to review it – for Confidentials – and it is arguably the Calder Valley’s great dining success story of the moment. Mark, now 45, (below right) gives huge credit to Simon for really launching his career.

Mark Kemp on the Shaw fire that ignited the El Gato legend

“I had worked in a variety of kitchen jobs around Leeds but never really settled. Then through Matt Healy I was introduced to Simon at El Gato Negro where I knew very quickly this is the real deal. I had never met a chef quite like him, his presence in the room was felt immensely. His eye for detail was impeccable, he knew exactly what everyone was doing. He took no prisoners during service or with prep time and demanded your best at all times, no time for slacking.

“There were days I would hate him all day long but one beer with him at the end of the night and I was back to thinking he was the best again. It was never personal with Simon, he was just passionate and loved his food, his brand, his products and wanted you to learn from your mistakes, do your best at all times never cut corners or  become complacent.

“One of the hardest things at El Gato was keeping staff, I was there for three and a half years and it was very hard to attract good chefs and keep them, many came and went in my time there, Maybe because it was in Ripponden and hard to get to or was it the long days and hard work? For almost a year it was me and Simon, Matt had gone to London, another chef Dom to Australia. They left shortly after the Gordon Ramsay F word show and it was the busiest El Gato had been in years.

Simon at source in Barcelona
The Ripponden interior

“Simon used to do a test on chefs when they came on trial and make them fine dice a chilli or a mirepoix, and sometimes the guys would be getting changed back into their clothes and out the door in 15 minutes, which was hard when you would think to yourself, yes a chef, another pair of hands please. I remember getting there at 7am and Simon would sometimes be asleep in the restaurant sat up with a hoover between his legs. He had to clean the restaurant for the next day on the night.

“It was tough but still I look back at my time very fondly and when I left for Shibden Mill Inn never got the same feeling of passion. It was mad at El Gato. I would be cooking seven to eight dishes at once, mini chorizo reducing, Alejandro chorizo, patatas bravas frying in a pan, 2 portions tiger prawns, baby chicken under the grill, chargrilling a quail skewer, while gently basting a monkfish on the bone, bringing them all together one after the other to Simon to plate.

“The man would line up the plates and perfectly send them all out, one after the other, sometimes sending back an over cooked tortilla, ‘eggs too dry – do it again’. Watch that chicken, Mark.! Turn the monkfish. And he wouldn’t even be looking at me. He just knew.  The buzz from the kitchen was the best. I’ve never had anything like that until I did the Engine. 

“My favourite dishes? There was so many, but I really enjoyed Simon’s version of a paella,. It was really fun to cook. Or his Andalusian fish stew,. Both hard to execute but so bloody tasty. Oh, and scallops a la mallorquina!.”

Looking forward now to El Gato’s third decade

One accolade shared by El Gato in both its manifestations is a Michelin Bib Gourmand. There’s also a constant roster of ingredients, the product of Simon Shaw’s early expeditions to the likes of San Sebastian’s pintxos scene or the Boqueria Market in Barcelona and a 20 year association with the importers Brindisa. Plus a continuing ability to employ native British raw materials without straying too far into fusion territory. France makes a regular contribution, too – Gillardeau oysters, exquisitely saline and fleshy. From family oyster beds in La Rochelle they are chosen because  they are the best.

When Simon went back to the stoves in February to prepare a King Street 10th birthday 10 course tasting menu, so many of those usual suspects were there in all their glory. The smoky Alejandro chorizo mentioned by Mark, here served with fondant potato and wood roast piquillo peppers; morcilla that’s a cut above most of of our native black pudding providing the filling for a Scotch egg on a bed of duxelles mushrooms: and the dish that exemplifies El Gato on a plate for me – fried baby squid on black ink rice with dots of avocado puree. Made up for the absence of octopus. Which, as it happens, is the favourite dish of Head Chef Milan Sojka who has been in the brigade for seven and a half years.

A lot of the current team are long-serving. One key figure, though, has departed in pursuit of his own restaurant. Carlos Gomes, former head chef of Michelin-starred Barrafina in London, arrived in 2017, bringing the dishes of his native Portugal to Canto, and in 2023 was promoted to group exec head chef.

Still El Gato Negro has proved itself a sturdy beast. Before decamping to Mulligan’s for a restorative Guinness after hectic hours on the pass he told me: “I’m excited to see us continue to play a part in the city’s thriving food scene, which I genuinely believe is the strongest outside London. I want to keep welcoming future generations through our doors and enjoy continued success, with Milan leading the kitchen.”

My great thanks for many of the pictures used here to Joby Catto www.jobycatto.com, who like me has been an El Gato regular for two decades and straddled both sites as their in-house photographic chronicler.


El Gato Negro Tapas, 52 King Street, Manchester M2 4LY. Items from the 10-course tasting menu will be available as specials from February 23 for one month. Tables can be booked here.

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Exploding the minerality ‘myth’… plus expert guides to great wine regions

You wait all your days for a debunking of the minerality’ in wine and then two come along. Both books, just published by the Academie du Vin Library, take a genuine tilt at accepted assumptions of terroir. 

The subtitle of Taste The Limestone, Smell The Slate by Alex Maltman (£35) is a mite off-putting: “A geologist wanders through the world of wine” Did my favourite wine writer,  Andrew Jefford, put me at ease with his summation? ‘“Rocks and soils haunt our thinking about wine. We see links, sniff origins, taste connections, digest differences. Is this cause and effect – or fantasy? Alex Maltman is ghostbuster-in-chief. This wide-ranging and clearly reasoned book shines a torch through cobwebs.”

Cobwebs initially entangled me as I waded through Professor Maltman’s links between terroir, geology and microbiology, but I was gripped once he put into scientific context wine writing’s insistence that minerals in the vineyard bedrock contribute to the eventual taste in the bottle.So many other factors are at play. His conclusion: ‘minerality’ is a pseudo-science.

Inescapable mind. In a recent copy of Decanter magazine Beverley Blanning MW, author of a new book on Wines of the Loire Valley, reviewed eight Sancerres from that limestone-clay terroir with a hint of flint in the east of the region. The Domaine Vacheron sample is spared, but in her short evaluations of the other seven ‘mineral’ features seven times, ‘minerality’ three.

Spain expert Sarah-Jane Evans
Sunny Hodges – scientific approach

So what does have a major impact according to Maltman? Check out the chapter, Four Elephants in the Wine Room”. The four key factors are soils, rootstock selection, choice of yeasts, and ambient factors affecting taste perceptions.

Book number two, which wields its debunking scythe much further, is Sunny Hodge’s The Cynic’s Guide To Wine (£25). As the title suggests it’s a rational antidote to romantic grape tosh, making use of the writer’s scientific background (in mechanical engineering) and running his two London wine bars – Diogenes the Dog and Aspen & Meursault.

Hodge is vituperous about the bullshit of wine speak: “‘The more we talk about wine in that way, the less we learn about wine. The more we understand why this tastes so “green-appley” because of the natural malic acid; why your Merlots and Cabernets taste so peppery, because of the pyrazines… I know it’s very technical food talk, but the more we talk about it normally, the less smoke and mirrors there are.” It’s a more approachable book than Maltman’s, ranging wider. I particularly liked the final chapter exploring taste perceptions and neurology.

I also enjoyed the sense of genuine personal engagement in the writing. Take this passage after he has pointed out that almost all rocks and minerals are essentially tasteless and odourless: “It is hard to believe that we conjured aroma associations with certain metals and rocks out of nowhere. I can myself recall the most distinct smell of lead from an unfortunate turn of events in Peckham.

“In my early twenties (he is now 35) I ended up with a couple of lead air rifle bullets lodged in the back of my head and jaw when I was the victim of a clichéd London robbery following a skate filming session… To this day the smell and taste of that alien object under my skin is unforgettable. How is possible that smell didn’t exist?”

Iberian spectrum – Priorat in Catalunya
Sanlucar’s manzanilla vineyards in Andalucia

After such polemics a recognisable vineyard journey from one of the great English wine writers. Sarah-Jane Evans’ The Wines of Northern Spain has long been an essential guide to regions that are among my favourites. Now seven years on comes The Wines of Central and Southern Spain (Academie du Vin Library, £35), which takes us from from Catalunya to Cadiz via the Levante and ends on the wilder shores of the Balearics. Trendy Sierra Gredos doesn’t make the cut, but the omission is slight when there is much else to savour in this encyclopaedic evaluation of arguably Europe’s most interesting wine country. In particular I love they way she tackles the recent transformation of traditionally hidebound sherry country in Andalucia,

Also new in the same series is The Wines of California (£35) by Elaine Chukan Brown. It is an in-depth look at what is the world’s fourth largest producer of wine, focusing not just on her base, Napa, and Sonoma but other viticulture areas emerging against the challenge of climate change, drought and the threat of wildfires. 

The book, heavyweight in every sense at nearly 500 pages, is divided into three major sections. The first presents the key ideas that help make sense of California wine as a whole, including the history of the state’s vineyards and how the topography delivers California’s climatic and soil conditions. The second tackles each major region in turn, spotlighting the most significant and interesting producers. A final section discusses the future of the industry across the state.

The Smart Traveller’s Wine Guide Series offer a pocket-sized, well-illustrated  wealth of information that can enhance a road trip or stay in any region. The latest volumes, each just £12.99, live up to that billing – Tuscany by Paul Caputo and Rioja by Fintan Kerr  (each £12.99). Both had me scanning cheap flights over.

Image credits: Chateauneuf du Pape galets (Megan Mallen); Sarah-Jane Evans and Sunny Hodge (Academie du Vin Library); Priorat (Antonio M Romero Dorado) and Sanlucar (Til F Teek).

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Memories are made of ripe Tempranillo and a honeyed stone abbey fusing Romanesque and Baroque

Grandes Pagos de Espana is a prestige association of single estate Spanish wineries. A broad church indeed as I discovered at a recent public tasting at Manchester’s hub of all things Iberian, the Instituto Cervantes. The seven bottles we sampled ranged from a new wave richer-style Txakoli white from the Basque Country to a minimal intervention Mencia-led old vines field blend from Leon. I particularly liked the 100 per cent Garnacha Secastilla from the Somontano region.

Unsurprisingly though it was a trio of reds from a different but very familar grape that finished proceedings, culminating in the Pago Negralada from Abadia Retuerta. 

Wines from this estate are regularly supplied to winemaking schools as benchmark examples of Tempranillo, Spain’s most widely planted premium varietal. That information came from Miguel Gavita, who had guided through the Pagos tasting. No false modesty here – Miguel works for Abadia – but he can be forgiven. I know first hand, in situ, how good their wines can be. Perhaps the wonderful setting influenced my judgement when I stayed there one glorious late spring. It’s all coming back.

My planned visit to this luxury hotel with its own winery two hours north of Madrid had been nipped in the bud when a journalists’ press trip was cancelled. Then I ran into the Abadia head honcho at a Relais & Chateaux bash in Cheshire and he said: go on, we’ll host you solo. Le Domaine lodging project was still a work in progress when I arrived

Heavenly Retreat Among Spain’s Great Vineyards

Storks and cranes, the skyline of an abbey fortress surrounded by vineyard. The storks are nesting busily in the 12th century belltower; the cranes, the giant mechanical sort, are at rest. This is a Spanish bank holiday and work will resume tomorrow on turning former monks’ dwellings and stables into eight new guest rooms and the Sanctuario spa/pool complex. To complete the transformation into one of Spain’s finest hotels. 

Welcome to Abadia Retuerta, westernmost of the wineries producing some of Spain’s greatest reds along the River Duero’s Golden Mile. Le Domaine, is the place to stay around here with just 22 rooms and a cuisine curated by one of the country’s Michelin-starred greats.

I’ve only just arrived and barely settled in my room, pausing open to fling open the shuttered windows for an eyeful of vines before I am out among them for a pre-prandial stroll. The view back is equally enchanting – pale, honeyed stone cunningly renovated, harmonising Romanesque and Baroque.

Such evenings of mellow sun and blue skies have been rare this spring. At 800m above sea-level here they expect nights to be cold, but it has been uncommonly wet, too, bad for the grapes planted across 700 hectares upon which Abadia’s fortunes are built.

In 2005 their flagship wine, the Seleccion Especial conquered all at the International Wine Challenge, capping a remarkable fast track rise for an operation only begun in 1995 on land previously part of the legendary Vega Sicilia estate. 

The winning  wine was from the 2001 vintage. I never expected to be served a bottle from that year with my dinner in the Refectorio, but there it was, still vigorous yet elegant, the quintessence of Tempranillo (with the support of some Cabernet Sauvignon).

The Refectorio was where the monks ate (and occasionally kept their livestock). Now these soaring white stone vaults are home to Le Domaine’s fine dining restaurant. For the holy men’s simple gruel, root veg and pond fish substitute sauteed cuttlefish with a reduction of its own juice, cod cheeks whitened with gelatine with a honey emulsion, market fish with seasonal ragout and its toasted bone juice, then crispy baby lamb with quinoa.

(Abadia owners Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis originally enlisted Andoni Luis Aduriz of Michelin-starred Mugaritz to launch the kitchen operation. It retains a star to this day plus one of those sustainability-savvy green stars. Similarly, the winery was designed by Bordeaux legend Pascal Delbeck, the man who revived Chateau Ausone.)

The estate is actually just outside the borders of the official Ribera del Duero wine denominacion, meaning the wines bear the name of the nearest town, Sardon del Duero.

This actually gives the winery more flexibility in the vines it plants and a portal for innovation. Alongside, Abadia Retuerta really feels like the cradle of winemaking in the region.

The Santa Maria de Retuerta abbey was originally founded in 1145, by Doña Mayor, wealthy daughter of Count Ansúrez, Lord of Valladolid – one of many fortified religious houses built during the Christian “Re- conquest” of Castile from the Moors. The Ansurez family left “terras et vineas” (land and vines) to the French-based order of St Norbert, which was the beginning of the estate’s long history of producing wine. 

The abbey, though, after splendid additional building work during the Baroque era, fell into a steep decline until the current sensitive renovation that marries light-filled chic interiors (lots of marble, linen and luxury fittings) in the bedrooms in the Baroque half with the miraculously preserved original church and sacristy. 

Off the utterly calm cloisters you’ll find an even calmer yoga room, hi-tech meeting rooms and the Vinoteca casual dining space new and old stone all seamlessly joined… while high above the resident stork family keep a beady eye on guests.

Most of these come with wine in mind, sampling first at the Abadia Retuerta’s own tasting room in the winery and then visiting rival establishments along the route to “wine capital” Penafiel. Le Domaine offers a unique personal butler service that can sort out all arrangements for you. Hot air balloon trip, helicopter tour or, closer to the soil a horseback ride? Just ask.

My butler Juan ferried me east to Penafiel to see the remarkable, elongated white castle on the hill and the Richard Rogers-designed Protos winery. It’s a workaday place, as wine towns often are, but with lots of attractive tapas haunts and an astonishing enclosed medieval square called the Plaza del Coso. Folk hire the balconies of its private houses when bullfights are held there. On our visit the shutters were closed, a couple of cats snoozed and it shimmered in the sun like the epitome of Old Castile.

Delightful, too, my last walk before departure at Le Domaine – along a raised path between the Duero Canal and the river proper. The birdlife is abundant and the spring flowers are glorious. The estate pays the same meticulous attention to stewarding the environment as it does to producing proper wine and pampering luxury guests. 

Mummy stork suddenly takes wing and flaps across the vineyards under a cloudless sky. A final glass of Seleccion Especial awaits me in my cool room. I think I’ve gone to heaven.

Abadia Retuerta, Carretera Nacional, 47340 Sardon de Duero, Spain. 

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Berenjenas Almagro from La Mancha’s meseta – not just any old pickle

Regionality is a foodie buzz word. Yet increasingly dishes in vogue transcend their locality. Take the dosa, fermented lentil and rice crepe of South India. Such is its popularity you’ll now find it across the whole of the Sub-continent and in many a street food spot in the UK (though I notice it is absent from the revamped Bundobust menu). Well, I always, felt I wasn’t getting the full masala dosa experience there with their mini-version. I like mine to be huge crispy, stuffed scrolls.

Which brings us, by a roundabout route, to the previous insularity of Spanish regional cuisines. Tapas and Pintxos may be Iberian cousins but  Andalucian and Basque culture and food stem from separate bedrocks. I recall an Eighties Spanish road trip when in some Castilian cantina I ordered a Manzanilla. Expecting a chilled glass of saline dry sherry from Sanlucar de Barrameida in the south, I was rewarded with a glass of chamomile (‘little apple’) tea. That confusion wouldn’t happen nowadays. Ditto on a Seville wine list you might easily find a Galician Albarino alongside sherries and local drops.

All corners of Spain retain distinctive cuisines of their own alongside the tourist staples of paella and sangria, but some very specific dishes named for their place of origin are also now ubiquitous in markets and on bar counters.

The Plaza Major is the glorious architectural centrepiece of Almagro

Take Berenjenas Almagro, pickled aubergine speciality from the sleepy La Mancha town of Almagro. Think a less complicated cousin of the Sicilian Caponata. Tastier maybe. I’d like to say I first came across the dish, which is eaten cold, in situ or even in Bilbao or Seville but it was in Paul Richardson’s revelatory 2007 culinary travelogue, A Late Dinner: Discovering The Food of Spain. More recently I found a workable recipe on Page 202 of Rick Stein’s Spain, spin-off from one of his more informed BBC series. Home prepared, though, it never tastes as good as in Spain.

Perched in the south of the vast meseta that is the Castilian heartland, Don Quixote country, Almagro (pronounced alˈmayɾo) is made for telly. Notably its Plaza Mayor and 16th century theatre, both products of the wealth generated by mercury mining, though it is the lacemaking introduced by Flemish families in that period that is the major legacy today. Oh and for hundreds of years before and after a particular aubergine recipe has been a constant.

Of Indian origin, the aubergine arrived in Spain via the Berbers. You see the name adapt to its new territories – the Persian badingan to the Arab badinjan to the Spanish berenjena, eventually to the French aubergine. Along the way it conquered a bad press, which had it responsible for piles, cancer, leprosy, poisoning and insanity. Indeed, the Italian name, melanzane, comes from the Latin mala insana or ‘mad apple’.

Aubergines or eggplants come in varied sizes and colours

Still it became a fundamental part of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine. Not always as the ample purple specimen that dominates our shelves. Often it was white or green striped and the size of an egg, hence its American name, the eggplant. 

It’s this variant that the folk of Almagro took to their hearts and their pickling vats. If you attempt to recreate it at home seek out Thai aubergines or at a pinch the mini dark varieties in Asian stores. It’s hard to find any canned Berenjenas Almagro in the UK.

Rick Stein’s Pickled Aubergine Almagro Style

1.25kg small aubergines

3 large roasted red peppers

500ml red wine vinegar

120ml olive oil

3tbsp caster sugar

½tsp crushed dried red chilli flakes

2tsp pimentón dulce

25g garlic cloves crushed

2tsp freshly ground cumin seeds

½tsp dried oregano

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

Bring a pan of well salted water to the boil. Make a small slit lengthwise in each aubergine down to within 1cm of the stalk. Drop them into the water for five minutes or until just tender, yet crunchy. Drain, leave to cool. 

Meanwhile split open the red peppers, discard the stalks and seeds and cut the flesh into 5mm wide strips. Push a couple of strips into each aubergine slit and then pack them tightly into two sterilised one-litre Kilner jars.

In a pan mix the remaining ingredients with 300ml water, 1tbsp salt and ½tsp pepper. Bring to the boil, pour over the aubergines, so they are completely covered, put on the lid and refrigerate. They are ready to eat within 24 hours and will keep for up to three weeks. 

From Rick Stein’s Spain (BBC Books, hb £25)

PAUL RICHARDSON, GREAT SPANISH EXPLORER

If there’s one book in English that captures the sheer ‘Duende’ of Spanish regional food it is A Late Dinner, companion piece to the earlier Our Lady of the Sewers, Richardson’s quest for the old, dark Spain. Both are highly recommended. The author has lived in Spain  since 1990, latterly, self-sufficiently with his husband on a remote Extremaduran farm. How he came there is the central theme of a recent When In Spain Podcast.

He has shared many discoveries about his adopted country. A pickled aubergine is not too humble to acknowledge. For A Late Dinner after encountering Maria del Carmen Sanchez Serrano, a berenjerena or ‘one who occupies herself with aubergine’ since she was eight year old, he visits the family pickling works, born out of extreme hardship following the Civil War. The key elements are the aubergines the size of a small fist grown in the richer soils of nearby Aldea del Rey and getting the boiling time exactly right before curing.

“I said goodbye before she stomped off to load up the van; tomorrow she had a delivery. We shook hands. Her arms were stained orange with pimentón – the permanent tan of the aubergine maker. ‘Berenjerenos, berenjerenos, that’s what we are. And it’s too late to be anything else,’ she said with a smile of resignation, tiredness and satisfaction.”

For tourism information on Amalgro and the Ciudad Real region visit this link.

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Ox cheeks and mushroom croquetas the pick of Canto’s seasonal menu

The philosopher Julian Baggini, considering rules in the kitchen, proposes a category of dishes called SIVs (Simple but Infinitely Variable) for various cuisines. The English exemplar is the Roast Dinner. Meat joint, root veg, roasties, Yorkies, gravy, condiments. There are only so many ways you can assemble this Sunday centrepiece and yet… nothing beats everybody’s Mum’s. Or if you’re into culinary dereliction, the congealing hotplate offering in your pub carvery.

I’ve written recently about the Sunday roast route for restaurants and its perils as a paradigm of Englishness. Imagine my surprise then when out of leftfield came a decision by Canto in Ancoats decision to push, alongside its Mediterranean tapas menu, a classic Sabbath selection of half roast chicken, beef sirloin or pork belly. 

You won’t find roasts at Simon Shaw’s sister restaurants, El Gato Negro (Spanish) and Habas (Middle Eastern), but then Canto has alway felt slight hybrid since the initial concept as a homage to  Portuguese food was ditched. Shame on the Manchester public for not buying into this distinctive Iberian cuisine.

The coup for Canto was installing Carlos Gomes as head chef. Porto-born, as it happens, he’s a former head chef at the original Barrafina in Soho, which gained a Michelin star for its Spanish small plates. His Canto menu is basically that too, the only remaining nod to Portugal a few wines, an octopus dish and the irresistible pastel de nata custard tarts.

An image I was sent of the Sunday pork belly almost convinced me to drop my prejudice against trad roasts, but the rest of the gallery had me salivating towards the Carlos’s new autumn/winter menu, launched at the same time. I didn’t regret it. Sampled early evening as a deluge sent the Cutting Room Square crowd scuttling for cover, it was the best array of dishes we’ve eaten at Canto and a couple were a real knock-out. If comfort food can count as a knock-out?

In showbiz you save the star turn till last; so it was with the braised ox cheek, crispy pancetta, celeriac and horseradish puree with kale (£11), a slow-cooked master work to blow any simple roast out of the oven. 

A similar intensity of flavour was present in one of the ‘warm-up’ acts. Jamon croquetas are my gooey crumbed balls of choice, but a swirl of black garlic mayo elevated a mushroom-filled version to umami heights (£6).

Not far behind were griddled cod with a black olive crust and confit potatoes (£9) and caramelised cauliflower in tomato and harissa spiced bean stew (£5.50), both soothing and seasonal in feel.

Octopus is a staple of North West Spain (pulpo) and Northern Portugal (polvo). Here for  £10, a substantial tentacle was served Portuguese lagareiro style, baked with spuds. Not subtle but cephalopod dishes rarely are.

Canto is dog-friendly and trying tiny chunks of octopus was a first for our chihuahua, Captain Smidge. He loved it almost as much as the Italian meatballs in an almondy tomato sauce with parmesan shavings (£8) we ordered with him in mind, but he snubbed the roasted beetroot with ajo blanco sauce (£5.50). Watching his waistline, we were frugal with our contributions of carrot cake and pastel de nata.

We ordered my favourite red on the wine list, from Dao in Portugal (where else?). The Quinta do Correio Tinto 2018 offers a riot of dark berry fruit, herbs and a beguiling smokiness. It’s a bargain at £37 a bottle (also available by the glass). Come to think of it, it would be a perfect partner for a Sunday roast.

Canto, Cutting Room Square, Blossom Street, Manchester M4 5DH.

Now open Wednesday and Thursday 5pm-11pm, Friday and Saturday 12pm-12am and Sunday 12pm-11pm.  The Sunday Roast menu offers two courses for £23 and three for £27, while on Saturdays ‘Tipsy Tapas’, provides great value, with three select dishes and unlimited Cava, Bellinis or house wine for 90 minutes at £35pp. It’s available from 12pm to 3pm until November 8, when the restaurant’s festive offer will officially launch. To make a reservation contact reservations@cantorestaurant.com or call 0161 870 5904.

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Getaria – heady Basque mix of woodsmoke and wild turbot

Chewing the fat, not literally, on a dinner date with a fellow food critic (her review bosses were paying) we inevitably strayed into the territory of ‘What’s been your most memorable meal?’, knowing on both sides of the table there had been plenty of contenders over the  years.

Memorable can mean many things, of course, not all of them positive, but we’ll pass on the shockers. And when we are just seeking superlatives, there is so much to factor in – setting, service, food and wine obviously, company, though if you are reviewing professionally that shouldn’t be taken into account. 

So when I say ‘boning’ clinched it for me I am not being naughty about my all-time favourite. I was swept off my feet by the whole ceremony of separating a turbot from its skeleton. Not just any turbot but the legendary wood-grilled rodaballo (wild turbot) of Getaria on the Basque coast. Elkano was the shrine we sought, arguably Spain’s finest fish restaurant. Unique for a Michelin starred establishment with its cast iron grills glowing intensely outside the front door.

There are several wood grill rivals in this working fishing village but all will doff their berets to this prow-like restaurant way back from the harbour where the legend was born 50 years ago. Founder Pedro Arregui’s magic formula – the fish sprayed with his own oil and vinegar elixir and then grilled for a precise 12 minutes.

Of late the rodaballo dish has travelled far. It’s the calling card of Brat in London, where chef Tomos Parry readily acknowledges its Basque origins; up north it’s a speciality of Joe Botham’s Baratxuri in Ramsbottom and Manchester’s Escape To Freight Island, while a steady stream of 4kg turbot are shipped up from Cornwall to the mighty Pennine grill of the Moorcock at Norland. 

All quite rewarding but in situ? Accept no substitutes. We had managed to get an Elkano lunch booking on a Monday. It was for 2.30pm, giving us plenty of time for a limbering up hike along the wild sea front to Zarautz and back through vine-clad hills producing the seafood-friendly, tart local white, Tzakoli.

Settling into the comfort of Elkano, we asked Pedro’s son and keeper of the flame Aitor to pick a Tzakoli for us from a dozen on the list, all at very affordable prices. He  recommended one particular example, whispering “it’s the only one not from the Getaria area. You’ll love it.” We did and it was a perfect match.

We did. It went well with an unforgettable ‘warm-up’ parade of seafood – notably txangurro (spider crab meat, sautéed with leeks and garlic, spiked with brandy, put back in the shell and browned) and the classic Basque treat, kokotxas (hake throats in a salsa verde). “Just tip them down your throat – it’s all about texture,” said our mentor. 

Yet, of course, this was just the supporting cast for our Wild Turbot to share. It had arrived on the quay at 8am with the rest of the catch. If it had been landed a few hours earlier it wouldn’t have made the cut. Elkano only sticks the freshest fish on its embers. 

Did our rodaballo rock? You bet. We were introduced to the fish by our server before it was salted, sprayed and grilled

Encountering the result on the plate was magical. Aitor, who now runs today’s more stylish restaurant, gave us a masterclass in the various constituents of the fish as he carved them – from the delicate fillets and dark fatty back sections, ribs from which he leached the gelatin with his knife and the succulence of the cheeks. The simple accompaniment just the sweetest of roasted red peppers. 

At dusk we walked off the long lunch around the San Anton headland, known as Getaria’s Mouse because of its shape. It protects the working harbour, once a famous whaling port,  from the Biscay swell. 

Our lodging was the Pension Katrapona. We had arrived the previous evening via a 50-mile shuttle from Bilbao Airport. Equidistant is San Sebastian. The Getaria grills greeted us. At nightcap time the wood smoke from two floors below forced us to retreat indoors from our balcony with its great view of the harbour. We found supper refuge at Jatatxea Iriba in the old town where we devoured a supper of house-cured anchovies, then langoustines and monkfish – from the outside grill naturally.

How did Elkano get its name? From one of Getaria’s two great sons. Balenciaga and Juan Sebastian Elcano make an unlikely pairing. One, the gay son of a sailor and a seamstress who rose to be Paris’s 20th century king of couture, the other an iron man mariner, who after Magellan’s death completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth with a skeleton crew. 

Born 400 years apart, both men are honoured in the town. Balenciaga with a vast modern museum housing 3,000 of his creations, attached incongruously to a palace once home to his aristocratic mentors. Elcano with two statues, the more impressive crowning an old bastion overlooking the port, and his name on the restaurant shrine to the blessed rodaballo.

He’s buried in a less secular place of worship, Getaria’s fortress-like seafront church, San Salvador, which dates from the 14th century and slopes oddly as if it’s about to launch like some fantastic Gothic galleon. How appropriate.

Factfile

Neil flew from Manchester to Bilbao with easyJet. Below, nearer home, a ‘wildharbour’ turbot at the Moorcock and expert carving at Baratxuri.

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