It has not been easy for Toño Rodriguez to place his restaurant, lost among cows and horses in the Aragonese Pyrenees, on gourmet maps: to succeed, he has participated in numerous competitions, which he has often won thanks to dishes run-in during service.
The story
Who is the best chef in Spain this year? The competition is fierce, but to come out on top, at least according to Alimentaria, is what seems like an underdog beyond national borders: Toño Rodriguez, 45-year-old, chef patron of La Era de los Nogales, a restaurant located in an old farmhouse in Sardas, a tiny village of 37 people in the Huesca area, where two sturdy walnut trees frame the landscape of the Aragonese Pyrenees for guests.
Rodriguez has been officiating there for a decade, collecting award after award: the Repsol Sun, the Bib Gourmand, the title for the best restaurant in Aragon and the title for the first chef in Spain, precisely. His three tasting menus are called Evolution, Revolution and Ambition, already describing a proposal that combines memory and future, where "technique is the less, and flavor what counts."
"In our restaurant, you taste dishes that are impossible to try elsewhere, because what we serve is the landscape. Those who order the long menu, Ambition, will start with an edible map of Aragon, to be tasted at the counter before entering the restaurant. It is a puzzle of wood, oak, and olive tree, reproducing the three provinces with their most representative ingredients," he told Siete Canibales.
Local ingredients, then. A matter of sustainability? "It depends on how the concept is interpreted. I've always thought that the basis of a sustainable model should be the stability of the team. And the only way to ensure that, is to take care of it. Lately I often get calls from guys who have been through here and would like to come back because they are not getting the attention they used to and the recipes are not being shared. I am beginning to think that what is normal for me is not normal for everyone."
To raise the profile and pinpoint on maps his restaurant, lost among cows and horses, Rodriguez has participated in many competitions over the years, creating dishes that he started serving in his restaurant. For example, the pea recipe that won him the title of best chef in Spain this year: "More than 300 people tasted it before the championship. We received all their feedback, asking for their opinion, so that we could improve it, such that by the end it was so run-in, I could have prepared it with my eyes closed."
His favorite dish, however, remains his mother's "patata all'importanza". "When I visit her, I always ask her to make it for me. I took it back in this year's long menu, cooking it the way she does, except for a few little tricks. It is a traditional potato stew that I knead one by one and cook in an almond sauce, in which I added razor clams and eel."
