Tag: wines

Restaurante Ispal – New Seasonal Menu

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This week (on October 4) I was invited, along with other journalists, bloggers and regular commentators, to the presentation of this season’s tasting menu at Restaurante Ispal. Ispal has been the dream of Pedro Sánchez-Cuerda Rodríguez (director of Grupo La Raza) for the past 15 years, and together with Antonio Bort (his executive chef), and Ispal’s new head chef Rubén García Chacón, Pedro’s dream has now been realised.

The objective of Ispal, which opened a year ago, is to showcase the traditional cooking of Sevilla, using indigenous products and providing support for local family businesses, and then reinterpreting these popular dishes by elevating them to haute cuisine. This, by definition, involves the use of the highest quality ingredients, meticulously prepared and presented.

The local ingredients include salt from the salt flats of Utrera, cheeses from Castilblanco de los Arroyos, the famous tomatoes of Los Palacios, goat kid from Los Corrales, fish from La Puebla del Río, wines from Sierra Norte de Sevilla, Ronda, and sherry wines from Jerez.

The tasting menu, which you can see below, was spectacular. Many thanks to Fernando Huibrodo for the invitation, and to the entire Ispal team, including maître Alonso Reche and sommelier Cisco Nuñez.

Pedro Sanchez-Cuerda Rodriguez – director of Grupo La Raza
Antonio Bort – executive chef of Grupo La Raza
Rubén Chacón – head chef at Ispal
Fernando Huidobro – president of Andalucía Academy of Gastronomy & Tourism

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Viña Sevilla – Fiesta del Vino

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vina sevilla (1)The Third Fiesta del Vinos, organised by Viña Sevilla, is a great opportunity to discover and learn about the wonderful world of Spanish wines. This edition will be held in creative-space Rompemoldes and will be a bit like a big street party where you can sample a wide selection of wines from different areas of Spain and also meet the winemakers. There will be various wine tastings, interactive workshops, along with homemade tapas and plenty of good music. Entrance is free but if you’d like to sign up for any of the workshops get in touch with Viña Sevilla as space for these events is limited.
vina sevilla (2)

Viña Sevilla – Fiesta del Vinos
Centro Rompemoldes
San Luís 70
Friday May 20th  7.00 pm – midnight
Saturday May 21st  12.00 pm – midnight

Sevilla Orange Days 2015

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orange days 2015

Sevilla Orange Days are back! The fourth edition begins tomorrow with a variety of orange-themed activities and, as always, with a delicious route of bars and restaurants in Seville which have prepared tapas based on the #NaranjadeSevilla. Click on the image below (or click here) to see the 27 establishments that are participating this year.

And don’t miss these two special activities this Saturday, February 21st…

Guadalquivir Vally gastronomic products: jams, oils, wines, sweets, teas, chocolates, sparkling wine. In front of the Las Sirenas Civic Centre in the Alameda from 11.00 am to 5.30 pm.

A cooking display and tasting by the Salmeroteca and the Barman Association of Western Andalucía from 12.00 – 2 pm, also at the Sirenas Civic Centre.

orange days 2015 barsSevilla Orange Days 2015
February 20 – March 1

Cata de la Vaca at Milongas

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cata vaca milongas

Last week I was invited to a rather unusual tasting event at Milongas Restaurant in Calle Campo de los Martires. It’s been a while since I was last there, so I was happy to accept, and duly arrived around 9.30 pm.

Milongas is one of Seville’s best Argentinian restaurants, which basically means it specialises in beef, so no prizes for guessing that this was a Cata de la Vaca (literally a cow tasting), supplemented with a wine pairing/tasting organised by Fran León featuring wines from Bodegas Salado in Umbrete, a small town in the Aljarafe to the west of Seville. The invited guests were from the worlds of journalism and social media, and it was nice to spend an evening of wine and food with a few old friends (and put faces to a few names, too) in convivial surroundings.

cata vaca 2The tasting was of five different cuts of beef, ranging from the well-known to the obscure. These were paired with the local Salado wines. I was impressed by the Fina Paloma Blanca, a sherry style wine made from Pedro Ximenez grapes and aged under flor but my favourite of the night was an oak-aged white wine called Astarte.

cata vaca entraña, punta de picaña,
entrecôte, tenderloin, lomo alto

Many thanks to the organisers for a terrific evening. It was great fun and I learned a lot too.

Andalucía Brut

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andalucia brut (1)David de Castro and Faustino Muñoz Soria

Andalucía Brut, the first “salón del cava, champagne y otras perlas”, organized by sommelier and “foodhunter” David de Castro, was held in Sevilla on October 16-17 to promote Spanish sparkling wines as part of the gastronomy of Andalucía.

andalucia brut (4)

The open air venue was Puerto de Cuba, on the bank of the Guadalquivir, with a great view across the river to the Torre del Oro. After the rain of the previous couple of weeks the weather was pleasantly warm and sunny, just perfect for wandering around the exhibitors’ stands which had been set up ready for tastings of the products on offer. These included some of the best known names of the cava world, such as Freixenet, Juvé y Camps and Codorníu, and some that I was unfamiliar with, such as Mestres and Llopart, but which proved to be of top quality. As with other wines, Spain has a great variety of excellent cava, at really very reasonable prices.

andalucia brut (3)

To complement the cava we had some of the accessories of a good tasting to sample. There was a special selection of bottled mineral waters chosen by another sommelier, Faustino Muñoz Soria (find them in his new book Aguas del Mundo), and Castro’s own Don Pelayo regaña flatbread and picos, which were developed especially for wine tastings. We also got to try some Spanish Riofrio caviar and Iberico pork products – a killer caña de lomo and a cooked Iberico ham infused with truffle.

andalucia brut (2)

andalucia brut