Asisa Madrid Fusión 2017 in Photographs / Images From The 15th Anniversary Edition of One of the World's Greatest Gastronomic Conferences Day One, January 23, 2017

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 Star chef Juan Mari Arzak (Arzak), Esmeralda Capel (Directora Asisa Madrid Fusión) and Albert Adrià (Tickets, Enigma, Bodega 1900 and more) on stage during the 15th Anniversary Madrid Fusión celebration, Asisa Madrid Fusión 2017. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2017.  #amf17 #arzak #albertadria

 (L to R, faces visible) Star chefs Angel de León (Aponiente), Juan Mari Arzak (Arzak), Pedro Larumbe (Restaurante El 38 de Larumbe), María José San Román Pérez (Monastrell), Joan Roca (Celler de Can Roca), Quique Dacosta (Quique Dacosta), Andoni Aduriz (Mugaritz), Martín Berasategui (Martín Berasategui) and Esmeralda Capel (Directora Asisa Madrid Fusión) on stage during the 15th Anniversary Madrid Fusión celebration, Asisa Madrid Fusión 2017. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2017. #QuiqueDacosta #amf17

 Star chefs Pedro Larumbe (Restaurante El 38 de Larumbe), Ángel León (Aponiente), María José San Román (Monastrell) and Joan Roca (Celler de Can Roca) on stage waiting to be interviewed during the 15th Anniversary Madrid Fusión celebration, Asisa Madrid Fusión 2017.  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2017.

 Star Chef Joan Roca (three-star El Celler de Can Roca) on stage by the Madrid Fusión 15th Anniversary celebration cake made by star pastry chef Paco Torreblanca, at Asisa Madrid Fusión 2017.  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2017 #amf17

 (L to R, faces visible) Star chefs Angel de León (Aponiente), Juan Mari Arzak (Arzak), Pedro Larumbe (Restaurante El 38 de Larumbe), María José San Román Pérez (Monastrell), Joan Roca (Celler de Can Roca), Quique Dacosta (Quique Dacosta), Andoni Aduriz (Mugaritz), Martín Berasategui (Martín Berasategui) and Esmeralda Capel (Directora Asisa Madrid Fusión) on stage during the 15th Anniversary Madrid Fusión celebration, Asisa Madrid Fusión 2017. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2017. #QuiqueDacosta #amf17
 

 Star chefs Andoni Aduriz (Mugaritz) and Andoni Aduriz (Mugaritz), Martín Berasategui (Martín Berasategui) and Esmeralda Capel (Directora Asisa Madrid Fusión) on stage during the 15th Anniversary Madrid Fusión celebration, Asisa Madrid Fusión 2017. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2017. #Mugaritz #martinberasategui #amf17

 

Star chefs Martín Berasategui (Martín Berasategui) and Albert Adrià (Tickets, Enigma, Bodega 1900 and more)  on stage during the 15th Anniversary Madrid Fusión celebration, Asisa Madrid Fusión 2017. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2017.  #amf17 #martinberasategui #albertadria

 

 My dear friend Marco Sabatini, truffles expert, on screen in a video commemorating the 15th Anniversary of Madrid Fusión at Asisa Madrid Fusión 2017, Palacio de Congresos, Madrid, Jan. 23, 2017.  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2017 #amf17

 Legendary elBulli Chef-owner Ferran Adrià (who was noticably absent in person) in a video commemorating the 15th Anniversary of Madrid Fusión at Asisa Madrid Fusión 2017, Palacio de Congresos, Madrid, Jan. 23, 2017.  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2017 #amf17

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About Gerry Dawes

 Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael &riane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 
 

Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at  gerrydawes@gmail.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@spanishartisanwine.com

Club Chefs of Connecticut & New York Taste of Spain Tour 2014 with Gerry Dawes, Day 4 Jan. 16 Culinary Adventures in Alicante

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On Friday morning, Jan. 17, we visited Valencia’s colorful Mercat Central, located near our hotel, perusing the fish, meat, fruit-and-vegetable, cheese and spice stands, then stopping just outside the Mercat’s entrance to see the often photographed stand selling paella pans and cooking paraphernalia. And at the adjacent market bar, we sampled typical rich, thick, Spanish hot chocolate with churros.

 

 Paella pan and kitchen utensil stand just outside the main entrance to the Mercat Central, Valencia, Jan. 15, 2014.  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2014 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest.  Canon EOS 6D / Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS USM.

By noon, we were on our way to the interior of the province of Alicante, south of Valencia, where Rafael Poveda, Director of Bodegas Salvador Poveda, was waiting for us at his Alicante D.O. (denominación de origen) winery outside the town of Monóver.  We were offered tastes of his Fondillón from the 1947 solera, a rare, sherry-like, aged red wine of a type mentioned by Alexandre Dumas pere in The Count of Monte Cristo.   

 

 The Connecticut & New York Club Chefs Taste of Spain with Gerry Dawes Tour 2014.  Rafael Poveda pouring Fondillón at Bodegas Salvador Poveda, Monóvar (Alicante), Jan. 15, 2014.  Photo courtesy Gerry Dawes©2014 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest.  Canon 5D Mark III / Tokina 17-35mm f/4.

We got to write our names in chalk on the huge 1986 vintage barrel  as did many other visitors over the course of the last 100 years of vintages on the many casks available in this cellar.  In America a bodega refers to a Hispanic convenience store but in Spain a bodega is a winery. 

The Connecticut & New York Club Chefs Taste of Spain with Gerry Dawes Tour 2014.  Chef Victor Honrath, Wykagyl Country Club, New Rochelle, NY signs a Fondillón barrel at Bodegas Salvador Poveda, Monóvar (Alicante), Jan. 15, 2014.  Photo courtesy Gerry Dawes©2014 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest.  Canon 5D Mark III / Tokina 17-35mm f/4.

Rafael Poveda and one of his friends-partners in the winery, Pedro Cáceres (who, because of that chance meeting has become one of my partners in The Spanish Artisan Wine Group),

came with us to lunch at Casa Elias, a wonderful family-owned restaurant in the nearby village of Xinorlet (Chinorlet) and brought some of his wines for us to drink.  

 

 The Connecticut & New York Club Chefs Taste of Spain with Gerry Dawes Tour 2014.  Gerry Dawes with Pedro Caceres (c) and Rafael Poveda (r) at Casa Elias, Xinorlet (Alicante), Jan. 15, 2014.  Photo courtesy Gerry Dawes©2014 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest.  Canon 5D Mark III / Tokina 17-35mm f/4.

At Casa Elias, a long table was set for us with little bowls of almonds, sweet, slow-cooked tomato compote, and aioli, which laid the groundwork for the dishes to come:  superb local charcutería (sliced cured sausages), snails grilled with rosemary and the star of the afternoon, paella con conejo y caracoles, rice with wild rabbit and snails cooked in a paella pan over grapevine cuttings.

The Connecticut & New York Club Chefs Taste of Spain with Gerry Dawes Tour 2014.  Lunch at Casa Elias, Xinorlet (Alicante), Jan. 15, 2014.  Photo courtesy Gerry Dawes©2014 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest.  Canon 5D Mark III / Tokina 17-35mm f/4.

 

The Connecticut & New York Club Chefs Taste of Spain with Gerry Dawes Tour 2014.  Lunch appetizers:  Pan-roasted almonds, aioli and tomato compote at Casa Elias, Xinorlet (Alicante), Jan. 15, 2014.  Photo courtesy Gerry Dawes©2014 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest.  Canon 5D Mark III / Canon 24-105mm f/4.

The Connecticut & New York Club Chefs Taste of Spain with Gerry Dawes Tour 2014.  Lunch cooking, paella con conejo y caracoles (paella with rabbit and snails) cooked over grape vine cuttings, and arroz caldoso (soupy rice), cooked over wood, at Casa Elias, Xinorlet (Alicante), Jan. 15, 2014.  Photo courtesy Gerry Dawes©2014 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest.  Canon 5D Mark III / Canon 24-105mm f/4.

 

 Arros con conejo y caracoles (paella with rabbit and snails) that was cooked over grape vine cuttings at Casa Elías, Xinorlet (Alicante).   
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2014 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest.  Canon 50D / Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8.

After our idyllic lunch, we drove on to beach and port city of Alicante, where we checked in the Hotel Amerigo, whose restaurant is the Michelin one-star Monastrel, owned by Gerry Dawes’s great friend, María José San Román, one of the top women chefs in Spain. 

In the next installment, I will chronicle our adventures in Alicante city and the following day in Alicante province again, on the way to Madrid, where we had our last adventure of the trip with a typical Castilian dinner, excellent flamenco and other highlights.

Chefs participating on this tour were Chefs Brian Limitone, Meadow Ridge Senior Living, Redding, CT;  Gerard Resnick, Century Country Club, Purchase, NY; Robert Rainone, Larchmont Yacht Club, Larchmont, NY; Carey Favreau, Glen Arbor Club, Bedford Hills NY; Wayne Kregling, Brownson Country Club, Huntington, CT; Wayne Klingman, Garden City Country Club, Garden City, NY; Victor Honrath, Wykagyl Country Club, New Rochelle, NY;  Dan Neuroth, Bronxville Field Club, Bronxville, NY;  Austin Simard , Brownson Country Club, Huntington, CT; and James Rosenbauer, Country Club of Farmington, Farmington, CT.

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About Gerry Dawes

Writing, Photography, & Specialized Tours of Spain & Tour Advice

 For custom-designed tours of Spain, organized and lead by Gerry Dawes, and custom-planned Spanish wine, food, cultural and photographic itineraries, send inquiries to gerrydawes@aol.com.  

I have planned and led tours for such culinary stars as Chefs Thomas Keller, Mark Miller, Mark Kiffin, Michael Lomonaco and Michael Chiarello and such personalities as baseball great Keith Hernandez and led on shorter excursions and have given detailed travel advice to many other well-known chefs and personalities such as Drew Nieporent, Norman Van Aken, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenberg, Christopher Gross, Rick Moonen, James Campbell Caruso and many others.

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“The American writer and town crier for all good Spanish things Gerry Dawes . . . the American connoisseur of all things Spanish . . .” Michael Paterniti, The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge and The World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese

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"Gerry Dawes, I can't thank you enough for opening up Spain to me." -- Michael Chiarello on Twitter. 

"Chiarello embarked on a crash course by traveling to Spain for 10 days in 2011 with Food Arts

contributing authority Gerry Dawes, a noted expert on Spanish food and wine.  Coqueta's (Chiarello's new restaurant at Pier Five, San Francisco) chef de cuisine, Ryan McIlwraith, later joined Dawes for his own two week excursion, as well. Sampling both old and new, they visited wineries and marketplaces, as well as some of Spain's most revered dining establishments, including the Michelin three-star Arzak, Etxebarri, the temple to live fire-grilling; Tickets, the playful Barcelona tapas bar run by Ferran Adrià and his brother, Albert; and ABaC, where Catalan cooking goes avant-garde." - - Carolyn Jung, Food Arts, May 2013.

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"In his nearly thirty years of wandering the back roads of Spain," Gerry Dawes has built up a much stronger bank of experiences than I had to rely on when I started writing Iberia...His adventures far exceeded mine in both width and depth..." -- James A. Michener, author of Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections

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Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 
 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

Pilot for a reality television series with Gerry Dawes  
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com

Goya's La Maja Desnuda (The Naked Maja) at Los Gatos Tapas Bar, One of the Campiest Joints in Old Madrid

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La Maja Desnuda, now with a padlock over a sensitive portion of her anatomy, 
Los Gatos tapas bar, Madrid. Curro Romero is the bullfighter. 
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2010 / gerrydawes@aol.com.

The Naked Maja & Bullfighter Curro Romero and the Not So Naked Maja at Los Gatos Tapas Bar, one of old Madrid's campiest bars.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes  

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts. 

 

  Trailer for a proposed reality television series on 
wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com

The Padre's Tavern

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The Story of Luís de Lezama, a Basque Priest, 

Who Became One of Spain’s Most Celebrated Restaurateurs
Revised article (first published in Food Arts)

 Material from a book-in-progress
  by Gerry Dawes ©2016


Former New York Times Restaurant Critic Bryan Miller, Padre Luís de Lezama, D. Ramón del Hoyo López (Bishop of Jaén)and Gerry Dawes, Il Circo, NYC.

One night in the early 1970s, Luís de Lezama, a Basque priest who would subsequently (and improbably) become one of Spain’s top restaurateurs, was invited to go to the gypsy caves on Sacromonte hill in Granada by a group of students with whom he had spent three days encouraging them to join the religious orders.  It had been a long day, but it was his last with this group of young people, so he joined them as they made their rounds of Granada’s tapas bars and the touristy, but colorful zambra flamenco performances. 

Along the way, Padre Lezama was approached by a gitana, a gypsy woman.  She showed him an old intricate piece of wrought-iron, which could have been a trivet, except that it had no legs; it was an ancient hierro, the facing for an cattle brand. The gypsy implored him, “Padrecito, buy this hierro from me, it will change your life.”

Padre Lezama declined, but as the group continued their tapas prowl, the gitana continued to appear, nagging him to buy her hierro. Each time Lezama refused her offer. Finally some of the students intervened and the gypsy woman left Lezama alone. At the end of the evening, some of the students accompanied the priest back to the religious residence where he was staying and said their adioses. When Lezama entered his room he found the hierro on his night table with a thank you note for his service signed by all the students.  It said, “Don Luís, here is the hierro de la gitana that will change your life.” 

Luís de Lezama.
Photograph by Gerry Dawes

 

Lezama’s personal stories—triumphs, misadventures and sometimes tragedies—as recounted in this autobiographical book, are at once intimate and at the same time mirror the history of the rise of modern Spain and its democracy.  

Lezama’s life as a young boy in the Basque Country, first in the village of Amurrio, where he was born and predominately in Bilbao, was marked by the fact that his family was branded as “rojos,” reds on the losing side of the Spanish Civil War.  This meant that his father was perpetually unemployable and the family often lived hand-to-mouth.  In his later teen years, to deflect the advances of young woman pursuing him, to dissuade her Lezama proclaims that he is going to enter the priesthood, an idea that sticks in his head—he had an ongoing internal battle  throughout his youth concerning his beliefs about God.  In his insightful, moving, often humorous book, Hablemos de Díos, Lezama insightfully chronicles his often quite surprising thoughts on God, the Catholic church and society.

After studying with the Jesuits in the Basque Country (Ignacio de Loyola, founder of the Jesuits was a Basque), Lezama attended a seminary in Madrid, was ordained as a priest in 1962 and became coadjutor of Chinchón, a 16th-century storybook town an hour southeast of Madrid with excellent typical Castilian restaurants and a remarkably picturesque town square that is converted into a bullring for summer bullfights.  

While co-adjutor in Chinchón, one day Lezama discovered sleeping under the portal of his church three young maletillas—impoverished bull bums, down-and-out young men who roamed the roads of Spain in the Franco era following the bullfight fiestas in the almost always vain hope of getting a chance to become a bullfighter (the famous so-called Beatle Bullfighter El Cordobés was a maletilla).   Padre Lezama decided to help them and soon befriended other maletillas to come.   

Lezama opened up his home in Chinchón to the maletillas as a place where they could get a bed and a meal.  Lezama worked with the maletillas and other poor young men, helping them to find employment and change their lives.    Soon he became known as El Cura de las Maletillas, "the priest of the bull bums."

“The maletillas took possession of my living quarters and of my life,” Lezama wrote in his book, La Taberna del Albardero. 

Once in Chinchón, during one of the bullfights in the Plaza Mayor that town is famous for, one of his protégés, El Bormujano, bravely challenged a big bull and impressed the crowd, but he was gored and carried bleeding out of the ring on a stretcher.  Lezama comforted El Bormujano as the doctor’s worked on his horn wound.  El Bormujano recovered—and eventually became an important part of Lezama’s restaurant team at La Taberna del Alabardero in Madrid and a life-long friend who is still with the Grupo Lezama—but that day that he was gored made a profound impression on Lezama.

Lezama gave numerous aspirant bullfighters food, shelter and encouragement and even drove them to bullfights.  Once he and El Bormujano rode the padre’s Vespa 14 hours to Sevilla and slept the first night on park benches in the Parque de María Luísa in a successful  attempt to get his torero his first formal appearance in a bullring, in Álcala de Guadaira, a town just outside Sevilla.  But realizing that the odds against achieving success as a bullfighter are enourmous, Lezama decided that he must find other work for his young wayward and usually homeless charges.  

The mayor of Chinchón*, who was displeased that Lezama was attracting so many down-and-out maletillas to his village, basically invited the priest to leave and take his bullfighters with him, so Lezama moved his scruffy band to one of the poorest barrios of Madrid, Vallecas, where he organized them into a group of paper, scrap metal, bottle and glass collectors for recycling and earned enough money for subsistence support of the young men from1965-1968. 

In 1968, in Vallecas, Padre Lezama founded the Albergue de la Juventud, a safe haven where he worked with young people until size limitations caused him to begin looking for another solution.  Lezama thought that a restaurant would provide jobs for the troubled young Vallecas albergue men, many of whom, besides the would-be bullfighters, were also homeless castoffs and delinquents.  Lezama hoped to channel their energies into gainful pursuits that would allow them to lead useful lives.  Teaching his charges how to earn a living by working as a restaurant professional seemed to mesh perfectly with Lezama’s philosophy of “don’t  give the poor fish, teach them to fish.”   

 
The albergue was the pre-cursor to the opening of La Taberna del Alabardero in Madrid.  In October 1974, Lezama indeed began to undergo a major life change.  For Lezama, a native of Almurrio and Bilbao in the food-loving Basque Country of northern Spain, opening a restaurant seemed a logical, if unorthodox way of achieving further his work in ministering to his flock of downtrodden young people.  He went from passing out communion hosts at mass to hosting a restaurant.  He obtained a bank loan, co-signed by a wealthy friend, and with no prior practical restaurant experience except for a one-year stint at Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne, he opened his first restaurant, La Taberna del Alabardero (Tavern of the Halberdier, or Palace Guard) in Madrid, just off the Plaza de Oriente, which faces the huge 18th-century baroque Palacio Real (the Royal Palace). 

Padre Luís de Lezama and Gerry Dawes at La Taberna del Alabardero, Madrid, 2006.

In yet another counterpoint for priest-restaurateur-maletilla patron Lezama, La Taberna del Alabardero is ensconced in a house purported to have been the home of a palace guard, whose wife was the lover of Spain’s King Alfonso XII in the late 19th century.  The opening of La Taberna was the year before Generalissimo Franco died.  Lezama foresaw the coming modernization of Spain and the advent of democracy as creating a business environment that called for new forward-looking ventures.  A comfortable, upscale restaurant with good, reasonably-priced, Basque-influenced food should be a natural gathering place for the busy area around the Palacio Real and the nearby Spanish Senado (Senate). 
 

“In the beginning, it was not easy,” Lezama said of the opening of La Taberna del Alabardero, “I started with 16 employees, most of the young men from the Albergue who had never held a job.  Many of them were marginal kids with a lot of problems, kids without a future, which was why I was working to help them.  Finally, I enlisted Francisco Pena, a restaurant professional and now the General Manager of La Taberna del Alabardero in Washington, D. C., to train them.  And I was on the phone regularly with two of the Basque Country’s greatest chefs, Juan Mari Arzak of Arzak in San Sebastián and Genarro Pildaín (the legendary bacalao maestro of Bilbao’s Guria restaurant).  They gave me a lot of good advice and were kind enough to take in some of my young people to train them at a time when the idea of stages were not so widely accepted as they are now.”    

Former New York Times restaurant critic Bryan Miller, Padre Luís de Lezama 
and Paco Pena, Director of La Taberna del Alabardero, Washington, DC 
at a James Beard Foundation dinner hosted by La Taberna in 2005.

 

Despite that problematic beginning, it is this diamond-in-the-rough “human capital,” as Lezama refers to the young people who work for him, that is responsible for the success of his  restaurant and hotel empire that now employs 700 people.   “From the beginning, my most important mission was to see that these unschooled young people got formal restaurant training.  I sent them to get experience in many of the best restaurants of Spain and France.  It has paid off and this human capital is the most important resource the Lezama Group has.”  

Camarero, La Taberna del Alabardero, Madrid.

Grupo Lezama now includes nearly 20 businesses, including the original La Taberna del Alabardero (still going strong after 35 years) in Madrid; its nearby sibling, the highly regarded Café de Oriente with its modern cuisine restaurant-within-a-restaurant, El Aljibe in the centuries-old, brick-lined cellars of the Café; and the new seafood-and-arroces (rice dishes, paella) restaurant also on the Plaza del Oriente, La Mar del Alabardero.  Grupo Lezama also operates  El Obrador de Oriente (a specialty food store) alongside Madrid’s Teatro Real (royal theater), around the corner from the original Taberna del Alabardero.  

At either the original Taberna or the Café de Oriente in Madrid you are apt to see long-time patrons such as Spain’s former President Felipe González (who went under his clandestine name, Isidoro, when he was an habitué of La Taberna under the Franco regime, well before he was elected to run Spain), current Spanish cabinet ministers, Spanish senators, authors, artists and bullfighters.


The Lezama group also owns hotel and restaurant schools in Madrid and Sevilla.  El Club de La Playa Taberna Alabardero in Marbella (opened in 1975) and the Alabardero resort in Benahavis near Marbella, where he also has a restaurant in Puerto Banus and another hotel-and-restaurant school.     

La Taberna del Alabardero in Sevilla is in a 19th-century mansion that also houses the hotel and restaurant school and a ten-room hotel.   The La Taberna del Albardero restaurant is now rated by Spain’s Gourmetour Guide as one of Sevilla's top restaurants, only scant points behind the über-chef Ferran Adrià-coached restaurant, La Alquería, at the Hacienda Benazuza (in nearby Sanlúcar la Mayor).  

Lezama’s first American venture La Taberna del Alabardero, on 18th Street in Washington, D. C., which he says he opened because the capital needed a great upscale Spanish restaurant, recently celebrated its 20th anniversary and has received numerous accolades from Washington publications.  Lezama says one of his great joys was seeing Alan Greenspan order calamares en su tinta (squid in ink sauce).   Last year, the Lezama Group branched out to open another American Taberna del Alabardero outpost in Seattle.

Also among Grupo Lezama myriad of enterprises are Hotel Miranda Suizo en San Lorenzo de Escorial (Madrid); Caserio Iruaritz (three oaks), a country hotel in a renovated, large, stone Basque family homestead in Lezama (Álava);  Arroz María, a new restaurant in Lisbon’s pleasure boat port and Mesa Real, which runs the dining rooms in the Royal Palace and the Spanish Senate.   Lezama, with his brother chef Patxi de Lezama, also ran La Carmencita, a popular stand-alone Madrid restaurant near in the back streets off the Gran Vía, one of Madrid’s most important thoroughfares.

And, for a number of years in the 1970s, Lezama had an award-winning religious radio program and he has also authored a number of books–his “Hablemos de Dios" (Let's Speak of God) is in its third printing. For more than thirty years, the indefatigable Lezama, was more apt to be found in a straight-laced business suit rather than wearing his collar, which he often donned to preside over mass in Chinchón many Sundays, to perform wedding ceremonies (he recently married Julio Iglesias and his long-time companion, the mother of five of his children in Marbella), to preside at christenings and funerals, and to bless the openings of new buildings and business ventures, some of them undoubtedly restaurants.

*A mural in the entryway of the atmospheric Café de la Iberia in Chinchón features Lezama, in his formal priestly robes (center), along with other habitués of the Café, town notables and historical figures.   Chinchón, famous for its production of anís licor and garlic, awarded Lezama the “Ajo de Oro” (Golden Garlic Award) and named him an adopted son of the pueblo.

All photographs by Gerry Dawes©2010.

For most of the past three decades, the indefatigable Lezama was more apt to be found in a straight-laced business suit rather than wearing his priestly collar, although he was known to carry his priest’s collar stashed in a suit pocket and continued to don the cloth and perform the duties of a priest.  

Padre Luís de Lezama at the Madrid Fusión International Gastronomic Summit.
Photo by Gerry Dawes.

“Many would like to have seen more of me in church, a place where others never come to visit me,” Lezama wrote in his book Taberna del Alabardero: Historias y Recetas de mi Taberna (Histories and Recipes from my Tavern / PPC, Madrid 1995).

Still, all during his career as a restaurateur, Lezama could often be found saying Mass in Chinchón and other churches, presiding over christenings and funerals, performing wedding ceremonies—including the recent wedding in Marbella of Julio Iglesias and Miranda Rijnsburger, his long-time companion and the mother of five of his children--and blessing the openings of new buildings and business ventures, some of them undoubtedly restaurants.
  

After being a restaurateur and part-time priest for more than 30 years, a few years ago Lezama set up a board of directors to handle the day-to-day affairs of the Grupo Lezama and went into semi-retirement.  We say “semi-retirement” since Lezama went back to being a full-time priest at the Montecarmelo parish in Northwest Madrid and has already been responsible for building a new Catholic school associated with the parish for 1,500 students.  

Nevertheless, he can still be found most days having lunch or dinner in one of his Madrid restaurants, the original Taberna del Alabardero or Café de Oriente, when he is not traveling to Sevilla, Marbella, the Basque Country or Washington, D.C. to check up on his establishments there. And one is apt to see him dining with the friends such as Julio Iglesias, Plàcido Domingo or former President Felipe Gonzàlez.  Lezama says one of his greatest joys at La Taberna del Alabardero in Washington, D.C. was seeing Alan Greenspan order calamares en su tinta (squid in ink sauce).

Luís de Lezama in a light-hearted, off-duty moment in New York.

Padre Lezama has written seven books the colorful anecdote-and recipe-filled Taberna del Alabardero: Historias y Recetas de mi Taberna (Histories and Recipes from my Tavern / PPC, Madrid 1995) and Hablemos de Díos, which is in its third printing. He has also written several novels, including La Rosa de David, in which one of the characters is based on former New York Times restaurant critic Bryan Miller, who once was a student in Salamanca.
 

 
The gyspy hierro cattle brand that became the logo for the Grupo Lezama.

The gyspy hierro cattle brand that the students in Granada gave him is one of the most treasured momentos of Lezama’s life.  It so affected him that he used it as the logo for Grupo Lezama, his ever-growing string of restaurants, hotels and hotel-and-restaurant schools.   Staffers, cooks, waiters and maitre’ds who complete ten years in Lezama’s restaurant, hotel and hotel-and-restaurant school group receive a pin whose design is taken from that gypsy brand that not only changed the priest life, it has changed the lives of the hundreds of young people who have been transformed by working in the Padre's tabernas.

-- The End --

Catalan Wine Routes Adventure Continues: October 18 AT Roca at Sant Sadurni d'Anoia, the Sparkling Wine Capital of Spain

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October 18, 2016 Vilafranca del Penedès - Sant Sadurni d'Anoia 

 

We arrived at the Hotel Domo in the wine capital of Vilafranca del Penedès (Barcelona province), an hour southeast of Barcelona sometime after one a.m., but Hotel Domo was relatively quiet--no jackhammer machine like we experienced in Barcelona--and I could open my windows for fresh air, so I got a reasonably good night's sleep. 

Agustì Torellò Roca, winemaker at AT Roca and son of Agustí Torellò Sibill, shows us one of AT Roca´s free-standing old vines vineyards from which their exceptional Clàssic Penedès methode champenoise sparkling wines are made.

 

Agustí Torelló Roca came by to pick us up at 9:00 the next morning to show us some of the AT Roca vineyards, their fine vinification facility at Can Bonastre, which is also a wine resort hotel and restaurant, and then on to their production and facility where the Torellós age and bottle their exquisite Champagne-quality methode champenoise sparking wines, including their native varieties Brut Rosat in a complex at the edge of Sant Sadurni d'Anoia. 

Sant Sadurni is the sparkling wine capital of Catalunya, Spain and, in volume, the World.  The largest producers, Freixenet and Codorníu make enormous amounts of bubbly, more than any other single producer of methode champenoise wines in the world. 

Agustí Torelló Sibill in his Conca de Foix Plana de l'Urpi vineyard (Foix basin, l'Urpi plain), near Sant Sadurni D'Anoia in Catalunya, southwest of Barcelona.  Photo by Gerry Dawes.

 The Spanish Artisan Wine & Spirits Group´s Brad Haskel and Gerry Dawes with Agustí Torelló Roca and his aunt Lali Torelló Sibill at AT Roca Clàssic Penedés sparkling wine production facility at Sant Sadurni d'Anoia.

AT Roca, an artisan, family owned, viticulturally oriented winery, produces superb quality Clàssic Penedès Brut and Brut Rosado sparkling wines Agustí Torelló Sibill and his sister Lali were shut out of their father’s  family winery Agustí Torelló because of a family dispute.  Agustí, who was the face of the family’s wines, decided to begin anew.  Agustí, Lali and his son and winemaker Agustí Torelló Roca, set up shop on the outskirts of the Cava capital of San Sadurni D’Anoia, and named their wines AT Roca. 

 

 Xarel.lo grapes, AT Roca, July 2015. Conca de Foix Plana de l'Urpi vineyard (Foix basin, l'Urpi plain), near Sant Sadurni D'Anoia in Catalunya, southwest of Barcelona.  Photo by Gerry Dawes.

The Torellós also found three prime ecologically farmed vineyards, owned by eight dedicated viticulturists with mature vines in three different areas of Penedès at three different altitude levels, from which they source their grapes:  Their Macabeu (Viura) grapes come from L'Ordal (coastal Massís del Garraf), Finca Canta Llops (Howling Wolf) vineyard, 420 meters (nearly 1400 feet above sea level); Xarel·lo from the slate-laced vineyards of Conca del Foix, Plana de l'Urpí, 220 meters (more than 700 feet); Parellada from La Llacuna, La Ginestera, 725 meters (2400 feet).

 Agustí Torelló Sibill explaining the topography of his vineyards in Penedès at his finishing winery in San Sadurni d'Anoia, July 2015.

The exceptional Clàssic Penedès methode champenoise sparkling wines of AT Roca:

AT Roca Vi de Terrer (Wine of Terroir) Brut Reserva 2013  $28.99   12.0%

“AT Roca is a new winery that was started by the brother and sister team of Agustí and Lali Torelló Sibill, as well as Agustí’s son, Agustí Torelló Roca, who handles all the viticulture and winemaking for the new sparkling wine house. These are the same family members who ran the famed Agustí Torelló Mata Cava house, who were one of the driving forces in the formation of the prestige of the category in past generations and continue to make one of Spain’s greatest sparklers, which they call Kripta.  An internecine family argument led to the ouster of Agustí and Lali Torelló and they promptly set up on their own operation, contracting with eight small farmers to purchase grapes from 97 cooler, high altitude vineyards farmed in the proper, Six Percent Club manner.

The 2013s are the first releases from AT Roca and not surprisingly, they are exceptional in quality. The 2013 Brut Reserva is a blend of the Big Three grapes of Xarel-lo, Macabeu and Parellada and offers up a superb bouquet of tart apple, bread dough, wild fennel, lovely minerality and a top-note of ocean breeze. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and rock solid at the core, with frothy mousse, lovely focus and complexity and a long, perfectly balanced finish. 2016-2025+. 92+.” – John Gilman, View From The Cellar

AT Roca Vi de Terrer (Wine of Terroir) Brut Rosat 2013  $29.99   12.0%
     
The 2013 AT Roca Brut Rosat Reserva is comprised of a unique blend of fifty percent Macabeu (Viura), ten percent Garnatxa Negre and forty percent Monastrell. The wine is aged for fifteen months sur latte prior to disgorgement and is a lovely, pale salmon color. The bouquet is bright and classy, wafting from the glass in a mélange of blood orange, white cherries, salty soil tones, dried rose petals and a smoky top-note. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, crisp and complex, with outstanding mid-palate amplitude, elegant mousse and excellent cut and grip on the long and racy finish. This is terrific Rosat! 2016-2025. 92+. John Gilman, VFTC

After our visit to show Brad Haskel the AT Roca production facilities and introduce him to Agustí´s aunt, Lali Torelló, partner and operations manager at the winery,  Agustí then took us us to meet up at 10:30 a. m.  to meet up with the Spanish National Tourist group at the Cava Museum in Sant Sadurni d'Anoia. 

AT Roca Brut Rosat 2013.  Photo by John Sconzo, Docsconz LLC

It had all worked out much better than we could have imagined.  We had not had to catch a very early train from Barcelona to Sant Sadurni, dragging our luggage with us, and we had been given a ride to catch up with the group.  The rest of the group had just gotten off the cross-Atlantic redeye.  Life was treating us good today!

Next up: Continuing the Wine Trail through Catalunya on October 18

Old vines from which AT Roca sparkling wines are made with Monserrart, the Holy Mountain of Catalunya, in the background.  (Photo courtesy of AT Roca.)

The Cava Museum, Codorniu visit and tapas lunch, Bolets early dinner, Barcelona Golf Hotel.

 Phylloxera larvae figures, large enough to be carried by fiesta participants through the streets during the annual celebration of the demise of the devasting vine louse's effect 
on the vineyards of Catalunya (and most of the rest of Spain and France) at the Cava Museum, Sant Sadurni d'Anoia (Barcelona), Catalunya, Spain.

 October 18, 2016 Vilafranca del Penedès - Sant Sadurni d'Anoia - Castellví de la Marca - St. Esteve Sesrovires (Barcelona), Spain

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About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 
 

Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at  gerrydawes@gmail.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@spanishartisanwine.com

Madrid's Barrio de Las Letras (Literary Quarter): Miguel de Cervantes & Lope de Vega with Glimpses of Quevedo, Calderón de la Barca, Lorca and Hemingway

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Image of Cervantes (1547-1616) in tiles on the Taberna del León de Oro (Golden [Age] Lion Tavern) front in the Literary Quarter of Madrid. Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2011. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

An easily walkable area roughly bounded by the Paseo del Prado to the east and the Plaza Santa Ana to the West is a fascinating place to stroll and go tapas hopping.  Along the way, visitors will see plenty of reminders of the great 17th-century Golden Age literary lights: the immortal author of Don Quixote (Edith Grossman's translation of Don Quixote is fabulous), Miguel de Cervantes; Spain's Shakespeare equivalent Lope de Vega;  Spanish poet Francisco de Quevedo, his arch rival the Baroque poet Luís de Góngora and poet-dramatist Pedro Calderón de la Barca.

(Double click on images to see a larger version of this slide show on Picasa.)

And in the lively Plaza Santa Ana, there is a charming statue of Federico Garcia Lorca, a monument to Calderón de la Barca  and echoes of Ernest Hemingway in such places as the Cerveceria Alemana, the bullfight bar where he used to hangout. 

Cervecería Alemana, once a major bullfight aficionados bar--still frequented by many foreign aficionados.

Famous as an Ernest Hemingway hangout.  Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2011. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

Detail of the Lorca statue in La Plaza Santa Ana in Madrid's Literary Quarter. The great martyred poet, Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca-- better known as García Lorca--was murdered by right-wing forces in Granada at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2011. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

There are also a Cerveceria Cervantes,  a Hostal Cervantes, a Lope de Vega restaurant and a Hotel Lope de Vega (my home-away-from-home hotel in Madrid).  A wild and crazy tapas bar called Los Gatos with a really camp treatment of Goya's Maja Desnuda (Naked Maja; note the relatively recent addition of a padlock over a strategic area of her anatomy). Warning: Have a beer in this place, have a look at all the kitsch decor and avoid being trapped into expensive, not particularly good tapas).

Middle room of Los Gatos in the Literary Quarter of Madrid with statues of Black jazz musicians, a photo of the great bullfighter Curro Romero and a reproduction of Francisco de Goya's La Maja Desnuda (The Naked Maja), now with a padlock over a sensitive portion of her anatomy (see later photo of the painting the way it used to be in this very touristy, incredibly funky tapas bar).  Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2011. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

More links to Miguel de Cervantes and Don Quixote:



Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quijote

Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes (Wikipedia)

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com