A day with Adolfo

This is Adolfo Munoz, not quite sure who the other chap is but he certainly has a firm grip on Adolfo's shoulder! Ha, seriously, you can probably tell this from the photo but Adolfo is a bit of a champion. We are in Toledo, a city in Spain that is famous for simultaneously hosting Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities, that is before the Muslims and Jews were expelled. Toledo = tolerance (Apparently) anyway, I digress. Adolfo is recognised as one of Spain's leading chefs, he owns four restaurants and has been doing his thing for over thirty years. He has a son, Javier, who is extremely bright and well balanced. Together they are a great act, think Faulty Towers meets Mother and Son.

This is Chef Jose. He is making Bunellos de Bacalao. For this cooking demo we were in his kitchen. Adolfo is an Executive Chef, and Jose is one of his Head Chefs, and I don't think Jose was particularly thrilled about having the boss, and the boss' son, flapping about in his kitchen, leaning over his shoulder (Javier to the right and Adolfo to the left) and tampering with his recipes. It was hilarious, Adolfo was trying really hard to be the boss, waving his hands about and banging things, yelling out at the other chefs, Javier was trying to get amongst the action, translating his fathers every word, and poor Jose just trying to cook. Quite a fracas! Oil was going into pans, coming back out, back in again, on the flame, off the flame, around the flame, back on the flame, flame goes up, flame goes down, food goes in to pan, some comes out, goes back in etc 

We got there in the end, and I gotta say, the Sopa Castilliano was the best I have had yet. It goes like this:

In a martini glass: 

One poached egg,

a thin slice of toast, 

a shard of toasted Jamon Iberico, 

a teaspoon of toasted garlic slivers,

covered in consomme of Jamon,

and a sprinkle of sweet smoked paprika.

The flavour duality of the two Jamons was simply outstanding, throw in the sensuality of poached egg and chewy sweet garlic and yes, yes yes yes.

This is Toledo seen from Adolfo's latest enterprise 'Casa Adolfo'. In the foreground is Adolfo's vineyards. It's only small - produces about 5000 bottles a year. They keep it solely for use at Casa Adolfo, it is completely organic, and they use traditional methods for its production. Its a completely natural wine, and my god, its good. Fair enough, there is so much sediment left in your glass you could grow a tomato bush, and it is not a technically 'perfect' wine, but, with imperfection comes character!

Wine, like olive oil, loses so much of its character in the refinement process. Shame.

Well, as I mentioned, Adolfo has his hobby vineyard for Casa Adolfo. For the rest of his restaurants he has is own cellars. Down a flight of stairs leading underneath one of his restaurants in the city, we found ourselves in the Adolfo Catacombs. Shelf after shelf, down passageway after passageway, spiralling downwards in tight, chiseled passageways. Dusty, dark, and cold.

I felt like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Arc, any minute I expected to step on a rat and fall on to the dusty remains of St Peter or whatever. Ha. And don't worry wine people, I know what your thinking, the bottles in the above picture are not really stored standing up (sacrilege) I just rotated the picture for aesthetic reasons.

We finished up with a tour of Adolfo's best restaurant. A ten course degustation sets you back 80 Euros, without wine. So its pretty good, got a Michelin star I think. It had a great kitchen, Javier was showing us around. At the end of the 'pass' there is a TV showing CCTV of the second kitchen (it's a three story gig - requires 2 kitchens) and Javier says "watch watch, Manuel is about to eat something"  - on screen you could see a waiter preparing some cheese for a guest "watch, watch, there! you see that?" Javier raced over to the inter-com, and with a great grin on his face pressed the button and said "hey Manuel, did you enjoy the cheese" and hung up laughing. He walked back towards the door laughing "I got him, I got him"

Time for good bye and Adolfo gave me a big hug, squeezed the hell out of me. I look forwards to seeing what becomes of Javier, coming from such a quality environment. These guys could have just built an apartment block on the hill, instead of Casa Adolfo, and retired into a sedentary lifestyle of Lamborghinis and champagne, but they didn't - they're still pushing. They really want to give back, to enrich the world they live in, not just for themselves, but for everyone. Im starting to pick up a common theme here. Interesting...........