“My cuisine is a very sensible, personal cuisine with very firm roots”. José Carlos García is the son and grandson of chefs; you could even say he was born in a restaurant and he carries his love for cooking in his veins. His contribution to Andalusian cuisine is quite simply “respect and dedication”.
You won’t find Mariano Rodríguez wearing a chef’s bonnet: “I’m a headscarf chef”. Imagination is the key word in his kitchen, where his only obsession is tidiness – despite happening to hold the record for having broken as many as twelve Bohemian crystal glasses during a symposium on Andalusian Gastronomy held at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid.
Diners at La Gola can enjoy traditional cooking, dishes that have been popular for as long as we can remember. The imagination with which Casimiro Frigolet prepares his Huelva fish and seafood speaks volumes for the establishment’s reputation. For this chef the important thing is “to have imagination in the kitchen and be open to new ideas when creating a dish or a sauce”.
La Espadaña also incorporates the Escuela de Hostelería Gambrinus, the only privately run school of hostelry in Jaén. There are eighteen studendens, divided up beetween the kitchen and the dining room. Like its sister establishment in Seville, the school operates under the auspices of the Heineken Group.
Jaén served up on the table. “My personal contribution is to have trusted in ingredients produced in Jaén”, says José Luis Navas, head chef at the Restaurant La Espadaña, a restaurant whoch offers tradicional Andalusian cuisine and signature dishes.
