World Tapas Day is celebrated with great fanfare in Gaucín, Andalusia

To celebrate World Tapas Day in Spain this year, there were plenty of tapas bars to choose from. I chose Azulete in the white village of Gaucín, southern Andalusia. It’s a cozy rooftop restaurant where the sounds of swirling swallows are the main background music. There, chef Gabriel Arnault, 29, and his partner in business and life, pastry chef Daniela Rodríguez, 34, have created a simple haven far removed from trends and clichés.

It may be simple, but one bite and it’s clear that this food is anything but simple: in fact, it’s personal, thoughtful and delicious. This summer, a tapas bar, Azulete Bar, is opening nearby.

Azulete’s seasonal menu is firmly rooted in the Andalusian repertoire, but with a strong individuality reflected in each dish, including original desserts. The chef collaborates with fishermen from the coast, Malaga butchers specialising in free-range meats, and organic farmers from the “campo”, the fields that surround the village.

The tiradito is cubes of seared salted bonito bathed in an orange-and-apricot dressing drizzled with coriander and avocado-lime cream and surrounded by fantastical rice crisps. Lamb’s thymus is smothered in butter. There are croquettes, of course, made with liquefied local goat cheese, honey and thyme. The oven-baked rice dish, arroz al horno, is soft yet flaky, moist but not soupy. The curjiantes de patatas, topped with silky Wagyu beef tartare, are not your typical greasy beignets; instead, they recall a crispy potato mille-feuille. The plump Solomillo de Cerdo Iberico is a pork filet mignon made from 100% Bellota Iberian pigs that graze in the forests of Spain, served with a Joël Robuchon-inspired potato puree. Desserts include a lemon/lime tart made with village fruits sandwiched between two slices of shortbread sandwiched between lemon curd and soft caramel-flavored meringue, and a coconut mousse made with a blend of coconut milk and white chocolate.

“I always wanted to do something with my hands,” Mr. Arnault said with boyish charm and a shy smile. “Growing up in our hometown near Paris, our family loved Sunday lunch. Grand MerBut his journey hasn’t been easy: Arnault left traditional school at age 14 and was fired from his first school. stageAt the École des Métiers de la Table, he discovered his passion for cooking. After graduating, he moved to London determined to find work: the brasserie at the Hotel Connaught was looking for staff.

“The sous chef said, ‘Take your shoes and your knife and come in for a day tomorrow,'” he says. “I was sleeping in a hostel, sharing a room with five other people. I was up all night.” He passed the exam but soon told his boss that what he really wanted was to work at Hélène Darroze, the two-star Michelin restaurant then located across the hall.

“I can introduce you,” my boss said.

At the age of 20, he started working in the cold food department, learning by chopping and plating vegetables every day, watching others cook and being awed by the creativity that came out of the kitchen. He could have stayed there and been promoted, but the British winters were long, and when a friend offered him a seat at a restaurant, he had a fateful encounter. Party chef At the Adrià brothers’ restaurant and club, Heart, in Ibiza, he was ecstatic.

What a shock! A young chef who didn’t speak a word of Spanish went from an urban, sophisticated Michelin setting to a restaurant in the heart of hipster life that seats 200 people a night. He went from a strict French structure to “a chaotic restaurant with a giant rectangular table in the middle of the kitchen, with 20 cooks working side by side.”

One of them, a young woman from Colombia, took one look at him and asked, “Who is this man?” She was the only cook who spoke English. She had lived in Buenos Aires and Singapore, studied pastry and interned at Albert Adria’s Ticket and Andreas Caminada’s Schloss Schauenstein in Switzerland. The two became friends and the rest is history.

The two spent time in Paris and then moved to Barcelona, ​​and the more time they spent together, the more they felt they had in common. But the coronavirus pandemic forced the restaurant to close, and the couple fled to the Costa del Sol, where Daniela’s mother lived.

One day in late 2020, the couple drove to the village of Gaucín, in the mountains between Ronda and Marbella. Having heard there was a holiday home available there, they decided to take the plunge.

“I fell in love with the space,” says Rodriguez, looking statuesque in a simple white shirt and ironed jeans. “It still needed some work, but I had the time!”

Now she splits her time between her young son, Lenny, and serving over 25 guests for lunch and dinner from Wednesday through Sunday.

No longer a chef de partie or sous chef, Arnault is now literally a one-man show in the kitchen.