Article 9

By Bruce Palling

If you are passionate about food and wine, there is no such thing as a holiday from them. It is impossible for me to visit any new destination without first enquiring what are the most interesting chefs, restaurants or vineyards in the region, regardless of why I am going there. This form of detective work remains one of my chief joys in life – plotting and planning with a combination of guide books, foodie friends and hearsay. 

However, recently on holiday in the hills behind Malaga with friends in the art world, my enquiries about exciting local food came to nought except involving a train ride to Seville or a car journey along the tourist-polluted coastline of the Costa del Sol to Marbella. 

This is not a region blessed with charming regional cuisine – instead, most places near the seashore cater to the lumpen taste of cheap package holiday makers. The villa was the best thing about the neighbourhood – a large Roman style affair that belonged to a retired British Ambassador to Madrid.

Enough of my friends had mentioned Calima (http://www.restaurantecalima.es/), run by a young Andalusian chef called Dani Garcia for me to know it was definitely worth the journey, as the Michelin Guide says about a Three-Star restaurant, even though in this case, it had just been awarded its second star less than two years ago. Quests like this always have a certain risk – there are too many Two Star Michelins in the world that create cuisine of technical excellence but without any clear identity – if you were blindfolded, you would not really know if they were in Helsinki, Munich or Lyon. This is definitely not an affliction I suffered at Calima, which offered the most pleasurable and original meal I have had for some time.

Dani Garcia is a 36 year-old native of Andalusia, the southern heartland of what was formerly Muslim Spain and the most populous region in the country. A tall, bespectacled, jovial (and overweight) chef with close-cropped hair, he first worked with Martin Berasategui, the acclaimed Three Star Basque chef from San Sebastian, then spent time in and around neighbouring Malaga before going to Marbella in 2005 and opening Calima on a ground floor annex of  Hotel Melia Don Pepe, a luxury hotel with uninterrupted views over the Mediterranean. 

It is not a promising start as the exterior décor looks like it is made to appeal to football players and wannabe Oligarchs, but once you wend your way through the gardens, things perk up no end.

Although Spanish cuisine has been at the forefront of the international food world, this was primarily because of the cluster of great chefs in and around San Sebastian and in Catalonia, where Ferran Adrià’s elBulli was arguably the most influential restaurant on the planet until its closure last July. Ferran Adrià’s name is synonymous with Molecular Gastronomy, even though this is an expression he himself abhorred. It is not a style that would immediately come to mind if you were contemplating a chef in southern Spain who takes especial pride in promoting regional flavours or a “terroir cuisine”.

This would be an error as Dani Garcia is a devotee of many of the techniques of Ferran Adrià, even though the end result is not overwhelmed by “molecular food” – instead, the set meal of 20 or so courses was a brilliant exposition of the culinary heritage of Andalucía.

“Ferran is extremely important in my evolution – both personally and professionally. He is not just a major chef but he helps people who come to him with culinary problems. I have never actually cooked with him in elBulli but we travel a lot together.” (The week after I spoke to Dani Garcia, he was off on a tour of China with Ferran Adrià.)

“Also, Ferran spoke to the hotel group who own this place and actually helped me buy the restaurant. He is my Godfather – he created new formulas, new philosophy and new techniques. My kitchen has many influences from chefs all around the world but the most important one is Ferran. Mugaritz is also a very good kitchen but it is not the sort of place I would go on a monthly basis – I would only want to experience it perhaps once a year.” 

(The London restaurants he admires are Hakkasan, Yauatcha, Nobu and Zuma plus Nuno Mendes at Viajante.) Although it was not apparent during the meal, Dani Garcia frequently used liquid nitrogen to create certain effects, which were in no way modernist or molecular.

For instance, squid croquettes are created which are in virtually tasteless and completely hollow inside. 

This culinary anticlimax is rectified by removing the ceramic saucer holding them to find the richly textured soup and squid in the bowl below.

Or an equally successful dish appeared to be a glazed tomato but was in fact solidified tomato juice, which in fact enveloped a brandada de bacalao of cod. “I use nitrogen quite a lot in my kitchen but I am quite pleased that people do not notice it or other Modernist techniques as it is merely a means to an end and not important,” he said to me. 

“Too many chefs think they are artists rather than cooks. For me it is critical to always remember that you are a chef and that you only have one objective and that is to provide pleasure for your guests. 

It is perfectly acceptable to have a concept and philosophy behind your cooking but first and foremost the diners have to enjoy themselves– that is more important than the concept.”

He then summed up his beliefs in a Spanish phase - La técnica debe estar siempre al servicio del gusto. (“It is fine to use technique but only if they enhance the flavours”).

 Perhaps the most satisfying dish of the entire evening was a tiny bowl of clear soup with what appeared to be three chickpeas in the middle. They had a delicious unctuous texture and a depth of flavour I had never experienced before. When I mentioned this later to Dani Garcia, he laughed because this was again a molecular creation, using a silicon mould for the shaping of sesame butter into a chickpea shape. “This dish is one that demonstrates perfectly that technique can be successfully used in the service of taste and flavour.”

There is another fundamental difference between the cuisine of elBulli and of Calima and that is that virtually no fine wine matched or complemented the multi-plated cuisine of Ferran Adrià. On the last occasion I ate there in the week before it closed, not even DRC Richebourg 96 worked, though Cava did. (Ferran actually told one fellow Spanish chef that the best wine to have with his cuisine was Salon, arguably the grandest Champagne, which tastes like Batard-Montachet with bubbles.)

This was certainly not the case at Calima, where Jose Godoy, the young sommelier, managed to enhance the experience with his selection of Spanish white wines and aged sherry, of which I was completely ignorant.

Apart from some wonderfully obscure Spanish whites and reds, there was a mysterious albeit enjoyable pinot thrown in which flummoxed me. 

It turned out to be Canadian.

While Dani Garcia is determined to remain in Marbella running his flagship restaurant from Easter until the end of October, he had also created a range of more casual restaurants called la Moraga, which he had hoped to export around the world. As for the style of the food, it takes its name from casual beach barbeques of sardines in Spain.

However, he sold this brand in November 2011 and now launching a new concept called Manzanilla (named after a Spanish Sherry). Three of these will be rolled out, starting later in June 2012 in Malaga, then later on in Puerto Banus and Granda. 

 “Because of the economic crisis in Spain at present, I would prefer to expand abroad. Everyone associates my name with high end cuisine so I was interested to show with la Moraga that I could also create a place without chairs or tables, where everyone stands up to eat and drink. Something must be right as they were full the entire time.”

The Manzanilla concept is based more on a brasserie with a tapas section, with the first overseas one planned for Manhattan in October 2012 and then possibly one in Beirut.

There are no plans however to try to emulate Calima at any other destination, either in Spain or abroad. “Sometimes, people come to me saying they would like to back a Calima in New York City or Paris but it is impossible to do that. 

This is my flagship and it requires all of my time and effort to make it work. If you have a leading restaurant in Spain, it really has to be either in Madrid, Barcelona or Marbella because these are the most cosmopolitan cities in Spain. San Sebastian is also very special but it is solely Basque cuisine. It would be impossible to have this level of service and comfort if Calima was not in a hotel – it is the only way to have a place with these high standards.

 I am not in the Pellegrino Top 50 Restaurants of the World list because we are in the south of Spain and not many food critics come here but I have had two Michelin stars for three years. I will not be leaving from here. I only desire to have one Calima here in Marbella and no more. It is my baby.”

www.restaurantecalima.es