Since the Feria del Caballo, Jerez’s annual horse fair, is filling the fairground with purebred equestrian and human specimens as I write this (till Saturday 11 May), now is the perfect moment to hark back to my visit a few months ago to Lú Cocina y Alma, the outstanding Michelin-starred restaurant in that city.
Today, high-end restaurants champion their own local, or regional, cuisine – in this case, not Spanish, or even Andalucian, but gaditano – from Cadiz. There is plenty to celebrate in this part of south-western Spain – superb seafood, Sherry wines, heavenly fresh vegetables. But this restaurant takes it up a level, as you’d expect from one heralded by the sought-after French accolade. It’s a cultural-culinary introduction to this area that is not short of iconic markers.
Chef Juanlu Fernández worked with “chef del mar” Angel Léon in nearby seaside town El Puerto Santa Maria for ten years – Aponiente is Andalucia’s only three-star establishment – before launching his own project at the end of 2017. The more informal Bina Bar then followed in 2020, opened to keep Lú’s staff in employment during the pandemic. I was lucky enough to eat at both the same day and saw how perfectly pitched each one is.
Bina Bar has a simple interior, given a chic edge by charming prints with a Parisian theme, gold-edged brasserie-type tables, and elegant, curved chairs – Juanlú is a keen Francophile. The flavours are robust and Mediterranean – smoked sardines, currently enjoying a moment in southern Spanish cocinas, were married joyously with roasted red peppers, alioli, and piparra (chillis), on rye toast.
The result was smoky and juicy, with soft warmth from the peppers and a bite of heat from the chilli. A burst of flavour that hit all the right notes. The sardine fillets were sliced into thin fingers, which made them easier to eat, and the flavour was less saltily intense than a whole fillet.
This was my star dish, followed by the aguachile de maiz, with sea bass sashimi, a Mexican-Japanese-Peruvian mash-up – deliciously citrussy-spicy, with a lime and aji amarillo (Peruvian yellow chilli) sauce, topped with grilled avocado and wafer-thin sliced radish. Clean, fresh flavours – healthy and tasty, and with a good dose of spice. The rest of the menu – 12 dishes in total embraced traditional favourites – jamon iberico croquettes, pork ravioli, and seafood rice.
The service was excellent – Mexican assistant manager Lidia, who speaks perfect English, looked after us with a professionalism and warmth that you don’t find everywhere. However niftily you speak Spanish (my English companion had lived in Seville for more than 30 years), someone speaking to you in your own language is always a welcome bonus. You can relax, and focus on the food.
And so to the main event. Lú does not entice diners with fanfare – located to the north of the city centre, close to Palacio Domecq, its entrance is discreet and low-key. Inside, it’s all smooth curves – the dining room is elliptical, with the kitchen at the centre, abuzz with hushed, smoothly choreographed activity. It’s a pleasingly intimate space, with only seven tables, set around the outside of the room. The open kitchen in the middle, where dishes are plated and sauces are prepped, dominates the space.
As always with such high-end restaurants, the presentation and narrative entertain the eyes and mind, as much as the flavours dance on the palate. The opening number – “course” is too coarse a word – set the standard for exquisite, delicate morsels, standards of taste and design somewhere high in the cloudless Andalucian sky. Even the cutlery and crockery were striking, forming part of the exceptional ensemble.
“Coquillaje – Elegancia – Paris” is a reference to Juanlú’s love of French cuisine, but using ingredients from closer shores. Arranged in a contemporary take on the three-layer seafood platter, this is one of the most stylishly presented pieces I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. It embraces a creamy. smooth emulsion of Conil oyster; razor clam from Malaga in brown butter; concha fina (clam) with crunchy pickles; sanluqueño blue crab with caviar, soft and salty; and scallop with gazpachuelo and parsley – delightfully sharp and citrussy.
This is sheer seafood heaven, matched with Pinot Meunier Perpetuel champagne, a pinky-yellow shade with pleasingly diminutive bubbles. A side note: I can’t drink alcohol at the moment, apart from a sniff-and-sip, so I was thoughtfully served a home-made fruit cordial by Lidia, Juanlu’s (successful) experiment – lucky guinea pig, me.
Then we moved to the campo, the Jerez countryside, for “Humildad – Jornaleros – Campo” – humble farmworkers in the fields. A tower of tiffin tins held three more glorious bites; but first, a botijo (wine jar) of mosto (must, or young wine), made from palomino fino grapes, from which dry Sherry is produced, as well as vino de pasto – this one was pale straw coloured, and sharp, with a fino-ish aroma. Our simple, rustic, yet nutritious countryside worker’s lunch consisted of a tuna bun (the finest Almadraba tuna ventresca, belly, that is – tender and juicy); creamy, yolky tortilla in a crispy roll; and bonito (north Atlantic tuna) with red pepper.
No visit to Jerez is complete without stepping into the hallowed ground of a tabanco, a Sherry bar, where in times past, women were not allowed. Now they – we – sing, serve, sup alongside the men: flamenco is another integral element of Jerez. Here, Spain’s arguably most misunderstood wines are served direct from the barrel, rightly hallowed in their home ground. Amontillado sherry, one of the most versatile varieties in terms of food-pairing, is served from a mini-barrel in the dining room – authenticity is the watchword throughout. Our amuse-bouches are a crispy fried tuna crunch, meaty mojama (dried tuna, known as “the ham of the sea”) filled with aged cheese, and marinated carrot.
An interval of bread and butter follows. You won’t be surprised to hear that this was no ordinary pan con mantequilla, but a sustainable, traditional version. Made from endangered wheat varieties milled in an Algeciras water mill, the three types are dense, fluffy, and a humid sourdough. This is accompanied by butter from Normandy which is aged for five years, theatrically presented and worked into shape, and deliciously rich and creamy.
Our next section takes us to the waters of Cadiz, 30km away – the oldest occupied city in Europe. A local speciality, caballa caletera with fermented piriñaca – cold-smoked, salt-cured mackerel with a refreshing tomato, onion and red pepper fermented gazpacho-type sauce, poured from a bottle. Our pairing is Pét-Nat, a sparkling Garnacha from La Rioja, in a pretty pink shade and with berry fruits on the palate.
Staying in Cadiz, we move onto whiting in a saffron sauce, with cuttlefish and potatoes – a zingy shade of yellow, almost like the albero colour of windows in Seville’s houses.
Our Sherry education continues, with a glass bowl of chalky albariza soil holding two glasses of Lú’s own house fino, nine-year-old Moribundo, from two chosen barrels at Gonzalez Byass, makers of Tio Pepe. It’s a mighty fino, golden in colour and deep in flavour, pairing perfectly with the fish.
My carnivorous companion continues with a reinterpretation of the traditional sopa de picadillo, a soup of chicken, jamón, rice or noodles, and hard-boiled eggs. Juanlú’s is a geometric marvel of tuile, crowned with a cured egg yolk, and a sauce of salty, fatty ham, and oloroso Sherry. My companion is astounded by its intense hamminess.
As a non-meat-eater, I am proferred morel mushrooms stuffed with white shrimp from Huelva with the sweetest peas. The fungi are fleshy-textured and earthy-tasting, combining well with the shellfish. After this comes bienmesabe, seabass steamed with fried skin – crispy yet light. Goat sweetbreads from the Sierra de Cadiz for the carnivore round off the main courses. Not an offal fan, she is impressed.
In culinary terms, Andalucia is famed for innumerable types of produce, and one of these is the theme for our first dessert: Citrus. Along with the opening seafood platter extraordinaire, this is one of my star dishes. Bitter orange ice-cream – these trees have lined the streets of towns and cities all over southern Spain, including Seville and Jerez, since Moorish times; olive oil, whose smoothness and glassy appearance enhances any dish, savoury or sweet; and a sharp passionfruit, kumquat and grapefruit compote in jelly form. As if this wasn’t a zingy fiesta of flavours already, a Screwdriver with mandarin juice is added. For this fruit fanatic, the citrus crush is absolute sheer heaven on a plate, topped off with a sprig of huacatay, or Peruvian mint. A Sauternes, light and not too sweet, is the perfect accompaniment.
We’re back up in the mountains to finish off – Mont Blanc, usually chocolate and chestnuts, goes to the Sierra de Grazalema for Payoyo cheese, along with pine nuts and honey for the noodles, topped with snow-like crumbled meringue. A sweet finish, Dulce Palomino, also made by Gonzalez Byass for Lú, has an intense raisiny flavour thanks to the sundried palomino grapes.
This was a superb meal, in case you hadn’t already guessed. Service was smooth, with Lidia keeping us informed throughout. The set menus at Lú start at 85 euros without wines, and 150 euros with wines; we were there for three and a half hours, and left replete yet practically floating from the gastronomic indulgence. If it’s your first visit to Andalucia, and specifically Cadiz province, Lú is a full-on sensory immersion. If you know the area already, you will savour your lunch or dinner even more. And if you’ve been here for years, constantly reading, listening and learning, as I have, it’s sheer joy to celebrate a tour of what makes this region so deliciously magical.
Me with chef Juanlú Fernández.