Jon Clarke (Publisher & Editor)
IT comes as no surprise that Casa Marcial in Asturias has become Spain’s latest joint to win the maximum number of Michelin stars.
It has been a quarter century journey from chef Nacho Manzano snaring his first star to becoming Spain’s SIXTEENTH to hold the honour.
The wonderful rural idyll (where Nacho and his sister Esther and her son Jesus hold court) is the very definition of charm and has continually pushed the boundaries, particularly in championing his region’s very best ingredients.
I’ve been fortunate to have eaten there four times, once before he won a star in 1997 and the latest, two decades later, when he had already garnered two.
While we had discovered it entirely by accident, it was definitely ‘a place worth a special journey’, as the Michelin guide defines its top honour, and we even persuaded friends to join us once from London.
For me, the family-run restaurant simply sums up the very best of Spanish cuisine and perfectly demonstrates why this country is nowadays the best in the world for dining.
It is no coincidence that the famously snobby and conservative French food bible Michelin has handed out stars to 32 new restaurants this year, ‘a deserving record’ I am told by former Michelin PR boss Angel Pardo, now based in Marbella.
“It is a completely different country from the 1990s to now,” he explains. “In fact there’s been a total revolution and it has spread around the country.”
He adds: “When I organised my first annual awards gala in 2010 I struggled to get 15 journalists to cover it; this year there were 100-plus. The impact dining culture has had on the country is huge”
The new stars this year have been sprinkled everywhere from Malaga (the amazing Blossom, which I reviewed in January) to Cuenca and from the tiny towns of Tomelloso to Carcaixent on the Costa Blanca.
Spanish chefs have, quite simply, worked out how to finally use their amazing local ingredients, wherever they are around the country, while the training they received at the hands of the godfathers from the north has definitely had an impact.
That is the careful patient mentoring from the likes of Juan Mari Arzak, Ferran Adria, Martin Berasategui and Pedro Subijana, at Akelarre, who once gave me a whole hour of his time for an interview during service.
But personally though, it is the rapid expansion around the country that has been most exciting for me, given the amount of travelling I do.
You used to have to drive for hours to find a decent place to eat in Andalucia, while today there are no less than four separate Michelin starred restaurants across just four blocks in Jaen city alone… a city which was a total culinary desert only a decade ago.
And take Madrid, where there are now 29 joints with at least one star, in a city that two decades ago had less than five.
Even better, take Cadiz, where two out of three of Spain’s new two star restaurants are found; Lu, in Jerez and Alevante, in Chiclana.
And best of all, take my favourite tiny joint of all, Sabor Andaluz, in the obscure inland town of Alcala del Valle, near Ronda, that just grabbed its first star.
As I wrote in a review for the Olive Press in 2021 it was ‘authenticity at its best’ and a real ‘joy’. I can’t wait to go back and still dream of the way it cooks its asparagus.
