Jon Clarke (Publisher & Editor)
VEJER de la Frontera is Andalucia’s definitive frontier of food.
The small hillside town has more good restaurants per capita than perhaps San Sebastian, and is easily up there with nearer rivals Marbella, Ronda and Sevilla.
Its amazing mix of culinary talent coupled with its variety of quality ingredients, makes for a genuine culinary melting pot.
Anyone planning to open a restaurant here would need their head’s testing unless they had years of experience at a Michelin star level.
So when the most recent arrivals Jaime and Alejandra set up their new joint, Narea, it was comforting to know they had met at three Michelin star Celler de Can Roca, in Catalunya, while counting on further experience at Madrid’s top restaurant Diverxo.
“We knew the bar was set incredibly high here,” explained Jaime. “But because I come from nearby Cadiz and Alejandra grew up in Malaga, we know the coastline well and how to make things work.”
So that would taking one pinch of seafood savvy, one grating of mountain fare and a giant wave of local vegetables onto the chopping board.
It’s an important mix that has left the white town bubbling over with excellent places to eat, whether you’re after a full sit down or just a bunch of tasty tapas.
“They should be doing university studies on the success of Vejer’s food revolution,” explains Alberto Reyes, who opened his restaurant 4 Estaciones in the town in 2017.
“Just when you think it might peak it picks up again and we have to constantly work on upping our game to survive.”
Fellow restaurateur Javier Duenas, from Madrid – whose hotspot Garimba is the place for people watching while dining well – adds: “We all pride ourselves on working incredibly hard, never standing still and keeping the prices down. And we all work hard to keep the bar set high.”
Forget its amazing beauty, its extraordinary location and its remarkable views, Vejer’s main draw is its competitive chefs and the freshness of its ingredients.
And don’t just look in the town, for within a ten mile radius you’ll find so many other hidden quality gems.
I spent a long time travelling around the nearby area for my book Dining Secrets of Andalucia a decade ago and was shocked to discover so many amazing places to eat.
Indeed, I still await my regular journey up to Patria, a ten minute drive from Vejer, with trepidation every Spring.
The Danish couple who have run this place for over a decade, Ase and Thomas, are my favourite restaurateurs in Andalucia. They not only have the most amazing eye, but their choice of dishes and continual changes is awe-inspiring.
“I’m forever experimenting and trying new things,” explains chef Thomas, who also runs a natural juice business. “And we realise the only sure way to survive here is to guarantee quality.”
It was during a holiday in Vejer two decades ago that I first stumbled over the seminal local restaurant Trafalgar, named after the nearby naval battle.
It, appropriately, stood out like a lighthouse in what was then a true culinary desert and served up a fabulous mix of local and national dishes, all with some great twists.
Even better, right across the square was Califa, a charming hotel with a hidden restaurant in its courtyard garden, focusing on dishes from across the Straits.
Opening in 2002, it was clear that its British owner James Stuart, was really working hard to compete and even, improve on the quality of his close neighbour.
“Apart from Trafalgar the food was so boring back then,” he explains. “There was nothing new, no Chinese, no Indian, no Japanese, and so we hoped to do something different.
“It didn’t take long to work out that we had to open a Moroccan restaurant, particularly as all the ingredients were literally on our doorstep, with the exception perhaps of couscous.”
He continues: “The two restaurants ended up setting the standard for the future.
“We knew we had to match Trafalgar for service and we tried to create our own niche,” continues the father-of-two, who landed in Vejer three decades ago to open a cycling business.
“From then on anyone who opened a restaurant in Vejer had to be at our level…and from about 2010 as the recession ended things started to take off,”
Within the next few years the town could count on perhaps a dozen new places to eat, including el Muro, Las Delicias, Judería and Casa Varo, while outside town in the nearby hills and on the coast you had Castilleria, Venta Pinto, Campero, Antonio and La Duquesa.
My favourite country places, aside from Patria, were up in the tiny hamlet of Santa Maria.
It was here you had the amazing meat joint Castilleria, which has continually got better and better, and the most charming spot in Andalucia, Venta el Toro.
Authentic and unpretentious it is no wonder that celebrity chef Jose Andres, brought his daughters here for a recent food programme.
Little changed in decades, it is one of the last genuine redoubts of quintessential Andalucia, and the food, while simple, is absolutely delicious.
Another historical joint is the roadside Venta Pinto, which has been a stopping off point for travellers and tradesmen for centuries.
It was actually around in the 17th century, when known as Posada de la Barca, it put up and watered people visiting these parts.
Today, it is still doing the same, with some people taking a coffee, others a tapa and a cana and those-in-the-know a wonderful lunch in one of two wood-beamed dining rooms.
All in all it has been a remarkable turnaround for a town that two decades ago few people stopped at apart from to take a pee or grab a quick bowl of gazpacho en route to Tarifa, Cadiz or Jerez.
