ANDALUCÍA - CÁDIZ - EL PUERTO DE SANT MARÍA - APONIENTE - VISIT 2
APONIENTE
Three Michelin Stars
A return visit to the Angel Leóns restaurant (famous for his cuisine of the sea and only from the sea).
We had previously visited the restaurant in its old guise in the centre of El Puerto de Santa Maria, which is now their up-market tapas bar/restaurant. The new one is just outside of town.
The new, far more glamorous place is just outside of town in what was an old flour mill, originally built in 1815. A small river/stream flows under the current building and the energy generated was used to grind the wheat into flour.
There are two tasting menus, which the army of chefs were preparing
Calm Sea at €195 with wine tasting €80 Groundswell at €225 with wine tasting €100
We chose the calm sea and started with
Appetisers
Croquetas de langostino (langoustine croquettes)
Caviar
Tortillitas de camarones (Aponientes version of the famous shrimp fritters that you see everywhere in Cádiz provence)
Percebes (Goose barnacles)
Percebes after we had finished eating them.
Boquerón (Anchovy)
Hueva de lisa (a fantastic mullet roe caramel flan)
Roca de plancton, wasabi
Ostra (Sliced oysters with crouton and lumlight fish)
Tapaculo (Spotted flounder marinière, the marinière sauce is made with flour, caviar butter and white wine)
Hot salt water is poured over the flounder to cook it.
Once cooked, it is then returned to the table with the marinière sauce.
Plankton butter brioche
Puntillas (baby cuttlefish stewed in their own ink with vegetables and dried baby squid)
Morena, tomaso (moray eel, onion, asparagus of the sea and butterfish (the fish is made to look like chicken breast).
The eel was just like a fantastic tasting pork crackling!
Dessert
Grapefruit in green and red pepper vinaigrette sauce (the most tart dessert ever).
Chocolate Top Left - Chocolate and Coffee Top right - White chocolate, salt and olive oil Middle - Chocolate and Jerez wine Bottom - Salty biscuit and brown sugar
We had various wine including
Lustau Fino de Rama Yoda (Angel León)
Tintilla de Rota 2003 (This is one of the rarest wines in the Lustau portfolio)
Desvelao (The wines is a revelation and something very unusual being the first dry Moscatel grown in albariza)
Quinta da Muradella Crianza Oxidativa 2009 (This was sommelier Miguel’s favourite wine from Galicia, but not Albariño, the lesser known Dona Blanca)
Very attentive service in a fantastic setting which is well worth a visit for anyone interested in top level gastronomy.
Chef del Mar Ángel León is certainly a gastronomic visionary and has taken his cooking into unchartered territory thanks to his technical ability, creativity and his love affair with the sea.
APONIENTE Calle Francisco Cossi Ochoa, El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz +24 956 851 870 +34 606 225 859 www.aponiente.com
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