Extra! Extra! Autumn Extra: Culinary Sea/Earthquake in El Puerto de Santa María (Cadiz).

Ángel León. Photo by Álvaro Fernández Prieto

The debut of the new menu and his test in the premier and petit committee has left me dismantled, in love and happy with the sea. I have had more fun than a pig in a saltwater pond. Clapping with the taste, the chinstrap on the ground, sparks in my eyes and a breath of the setting in the heart.

This news made me change, I will try, though I can’t promise anything, not write this article as annoying and cheesy as my cuisine chronicles always are. I am different. This lunch made me overcome with emotion. It was brutal. I was not prepared for so much, Mama Mia! I became a mere preacher, a spokesman who tells you all have eaten and lived there.

Ángel and Juanlu, with their “Autumn Courts of the Sea”, have created a new concept, a Recreation of the Cuisine of the Sea and may have its remote and immediate predecessor in the “sea and the mountain” of life, but that is beyond the four winds, spray and leaves behind a level of Mediterranean waves.

They have created, they have rolled up their chef/sailor sleeve, a magical formula, an unknown interpretation, nonexistent, never dreamed of, from the kitchen, one of meat and one of fish; they have put the mountain in the ocean, they have made the Atlantic flood Cadiz entirely, they have thrown autumn into the sea, in front of my nose and mouth at point blank. From the sea, squab, pork, lamb and tripe bursting with Omega 3000. To shed our old skin.

As you know, Angel returns from the sea where he lives all the time. When you look at it, well he dominates the trip, to set foot on land and pick up his abandoned heart, there it is too much. It is his curse.  Now enraged and furious, having to start again, he has rebelled and has brought with him the sea within, in cahoots with Noah and Poseidon, and those species of the earth. Ducks to the water. Having obtained a pure and sublime synthesis of both worlds, an amphibious cuisine like him, himself. There is no separation, no support, not even a union, only symbiosis, his Land and Sea Cuisine recently born, is, in short, re-creative and recreational integration. Kitchen Recreation.

I tell you:

Sea Snails. Photo by: Álvaro Fernández Prieto

you play with the cup of Sea Snails in a Busan or canailla base in their great juice visibly improving traditional recipes; it distracts you with a light focaccia with shrimp in which we spread a tasty sobrasada (soft, spicy sausage) of horse mackerel, picking it and giving it another twist to its dominant intimacy with the mackerel, immersing it in a broth of its bones mixed with a fermented water of grain “a la Romanian style”, achieving unprecedented texture and flavour. Revolutionise your Tomato by adding horseradish beet and accompanying it with radish, bits of Payoyo cheese and a spicy green Moroccan tartness that will astonish you.

Squid. Photo by: Álvaro Fernández Prieto

They give you a warm white soup, Gazpacho style for its connection with the egg yolk, with a garnish of smoked sardines and eggs with a touch of Moroccan lemon, it’s pure candy in the mouth, it tones the body and lifts the spirit through the old-style soups and seafaring swine soups from the port; followed by a perfect bundle of powerful stuffed hooves in their filth which evolves into something spicy and sharp, that is to say, the joy for the kashibushi mojamero; continuing with the same specie with a puncture of tiptoes in its juice (txipis, maganos, pelayos, or whatever you want to call it), which is a mixture of its flavours and textures that it holds within and that soaks you to the bone: marrow beef and fish stewed with lemon.

Pigeon from the Sea. Photo by: Álvaro Fernández Prieto

He goes far beyond with his Pigeon from the Sea, a tranquil Donana snook, a pheasant which, marinated in the livers of both animals, hunting and fishing, with its tart juice is a perfect stew of great submarine stature, furthermore a sublime visual game that recreates the pigeon breast with its crispy skin; a meat that has retained its sea and air flavour, from a serious Francophile depth and reduced just right, it combines everything in harmony. Impressive.

Fish Skirt of Scales. Photo by: Álvaro Fernández Prieto

More. Fish skirt of scales, the upper belly with its firm support destroyed, all in one, in the mouth, texture and tenderness of high belly, fleshy, juicy, previously cured and dried like a jowl in a dryer of the sierra, then bathed in a reduction of turbulent and sharp base which is assembled like the thousand wonders of the palate and that accompanies it even better, making the visual game of egg yolk combined with algae crumbs. A plate full of succulence and substance.

Albur Loin. Photo by: Álvaro Fernández Prieto

Even more. Albur loin, undercooked, lacquered in its own fat with cheese gnocchi, presented as if it were a lamb outside, although only one outside, for its chops served with its spine/bones included, making each chop with its bone, topped with a sauce/ clear very flavourful Borreguiles broth. Elegant, refined, complex and accomplished.

Madrid style Tripe. Photo by: Álvaro Fernández Prieto

And finally, Madrid style Tripe, those that “a sailor at sea would cook if land didn’t exist and wanted to recreate it with touching it”. They are tuna, dried tuna, and chorizo from the sea. My eyes remain open, eyebrows arched, forehead wrinkled, however, my lips were sealed, I could not unseal them to complete the look of total surprise, amazement at the enormous size of the plate with tremendous improvement since it began, some time ago playing with tuna skin in tomato. A child’s size next to this huge traditional dish, above, a tomato sauce that become essentially background syrup surrounding and permeating all the ingredients into a great dish.

Apple and Celery Sorbet

For dessert, a refreshing cold set of acids, ginger, celery and… customary of the house, asserted and necessary for the obligated cleaning of the marinated mouth and a crispy turnover cake it’s own way, fluffy and tasty, topped with ice cream…

It’s like the menu of the food chain before, it had taken a leap in time to the Quaternary Pleistocene period to hunt/ fish there for a “who-knows-what-saurus”, those that flew, swam and ran and that were brought here to put into a pot and extract their most essential juices. Recovering the ways of the land, sea and air and now moving onto the fourth element, fire. Performing a spell of the overall flavour of the kitchen that has left me weak moving toward heart failure.

All of it, the total result of this unexpected menu for the end of the year is exceptional. A result of the restless mind of Angel, unable to stop, a triumph of originality and creativity, a tsunami that multiplies, one after another, waves that are stolen from the kitchen of the sea. Logical consequence of the depth of knowledge that has reached the combination of work, perseverance, expertise, research, testing and art.

Those who don’t go will lose and, I can assure them, they will repent it for life. It is the culinary event of the season. I am your friend, yes. And what?