Gourmet at the Corner Store

Serrano ham is being cut into razor-thin slices at Las Añadas de España.’

Text and photos by Derek Workman

at the corner store Several delis in the Valencia region of Spain now double as go-to lunch and dinner spots for visiting foodies and wine connoisseurs.

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t’s almost impossible to think of food in Spain without including the word tapas, but in Valencia, home of that other staple of Spanish gastronomy, paella, there is a new movement afoot. Here you can sample the best of gastronomy from Spain and beyond before taking a neatly wrapped selection of your favourites home.

Spain is still very much the domain of the corner shop, where the delicatessen, with its elegant and often elite selection from around the world, sits comfortably side-by-side with the supermarket. Here delis are known as ultramarinos (“things from across the sea”) or mantequerias (literally, “a butter place”), and can range from a tiny family affair to a gastronome’s superstore delight.

A number of specialist food shops have seen a new marketing opportunity, and have installed a few tables

where customers can have a light meal before or after shopping. Others are seeing it as a whole new concept and designing their premises specifically with deli-dining in mind.

In effect, dining at the bodega involves an enormous self-assembly menu, and most establishments make no extra charge for serving the same food they offer at the counter. There is usually a corkage charge for wines, however.

Here’s a cross-cut of Valencia’s delectable corner shop dining experiences, from the distinguished to the posh.

The historic One: Mantequerias Vicente Castillo The oldest deli in Valencia was opened in 1916 as a neighbourhood ultramarinos. In the late 1950s, the second-generation Vicente began to create the largest and finest quality bodega in the city. Today it stocks about 7,000 very select bottles – but as the current Vicente Castillo, of the third generation, points out, “it’s the quality that is most important, not the quantity.” The wine list reads like a bon vivant’s dream; French Chateau Latour 1918 and Mouton Rothschild Grand Cru 1928. You can pick up a perfectly respectable local red for 3.50 euros, but the Chateau Latour will set you back a modest 6,000 euros.

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Meat and Moët at Mantequerias Vicente Castillo.

Tuna with anchovies.

The stunning wine list is supported by an equally exceptional selection of Spanish food. The owner is also a lover of French cheese, which is why the deli offers one of Spain’s widest selections. An increasing range of the best of Italian charcuterie complements some of the finest local products.

The menu is refreshingly unrefined; simply point at what you want or ask the staff for suggestions, and relax with a glass of wine until your selection is delivered to you elegantly displayed.

Manager’s lunch

(about €22, plus another €40 for a bottle of champagne): Brie with truffle.

Ventresca de bonito with anchovies, tiny red peppers stuffed with queso petrella and dribbled with olive oil from Masia Altet.

And a glass of: Well-chilled Louis Roedrer Millcine Rosé Champagne.

Recommended wines: Top end: Valbuena 5º; Valbuena de Duero, Vega-Sicilia, €80 Economic: Viña Pomal Crianza, Rioja, Bodegas Bilbainas, €6 Local: Santa Rosa, Alicante, Bodegas Enrique Mendoza, €22 Mantequerias Vicente Castillo, Gran Via Marqués del Turia, 1 +34 96 351 0423,

mantequeriascastillo.com

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The Posh One: Las Añadas de España When Jose Bacete opened Las Añadas de España in 1989, he was determined to make it the best wine shop in Spain. Elegance, top-notch service and an international selection of the best produce on offer reigned supreme from the beginning, and still do. The simple task of choosing a tin of sardines becomes a gastronomic adventure as you are guided through your selection by the knowledgeable assistants. It may appear as if one needs a platinum card to fill his or her shopping basket, but the selection is so cosmopolitan that, as manager Miguel Angel Pietro says, “To be a gourmet doesn’t always require money.”

Three tables allow customers to take the weight off their feet and nibble at a tapa; it’s an opportunity to sample something they might not usually take home in large amounts. An innovative menu of some of the shop’s specialities is always available, with wines bought by the glass or bottle. Of course you can simply wander the shop and make a selection that will be prepared and served to you.

Las Añadas offers cookery courses built around products that are found on its shelves. Clients whose lives are all hustle-and-bustle learn how to prepare an imaginative meal with little required preparation or clean-up afterwards. Brunch is served twice a month on Tuesdays.

Gourmet doesn’t require money

Manager’s lunch (about €9): Menestra (freshly boiled vegetables with a sprinkling of salt and a dribble of olive oil) with a few thin slices of Iberico ham

Not much has changed in 175 years at Bodegas Montaña.

The name of Bueno Para Comer translates into “good to eat.”

And a glass of: Angelical, a light red wine from Bodegas Enguera, especially bottled for Las Añadas de España.

Recommended wines: Top end: Terreus, Ribera del Duero, Bodegas Mauro, €78 Economic: Finca Terrerazo, Valencia, Bodegas Mustiguillo, €24 Local: Angelical, Valencia, Bodegas Enguera, €9 Las Añadas de España, Calle Játiva,3 +34 963 533 845, www.lasanadas.es

The pocket-sized One: Bueno Para Comer When you enter this corner shop, you might imagine that nothing has changed since it opened as Ultramarinos Almirante in 1920. Take a closer look at the shelves, though, and you see an array of gastronomic delights from around the world, all selected personally

by Harrods-trained Dan Gill.

This is where Valencianos – and an increasing number of foreign visitors – come to try something not available anywhere else in the city. It helps that the shop is right next door to Riff, one of Valencia’s top restaurants. Riff supplies the wonderful olive oil and rosemary bread, marinated sardines, apple strudel and other delicacies, depending on the day’s menu.

In Bueno Para Comer, where everything is indeed, good to eat, you can select a light lunch from the deli counter or take something home that’s easy to prepare; couscous from Morocco, Greek tatziki, hummus from the Middle East, English cheddar, as well as the

best of Spanish foods, all tested and tasted by Gill. If you aren’t sure what Kumsi ginger-lemon green tea tastes like, you can try it before taking a packet home.

There’s an extensive wine list, and if you are in a celebratory mood, there are always small bottles of freshly chilled cava available.

Manager’s lunch (about €22): Cheshire Cheese with Chili Crackers Hand-cut Iberico ham.

And a glass of: Pinot Blanc from Heiner Sauer Recommended wines: Top end: Roda II, Rioja, Bodegas Roda, €43 Economic: Cambra Dos, Valencia, Bodegas Rafael Cambra, €10 Local: Capricho, Utiel-Requena, Bodegas Palmera, €13.80 Bueno Para Comer, Calle Almirante Cadarso, 14 +34 963 161 146, www.buenoparacomer.es

The new addition: La Ola Fresca La Ola Fresca’s owner, Helen Westwater, was formerly the prietor of Botelet in Cornwall, which was voted the best bed and breakfast in the UK by The Guardian newspaper. She was also chef onboard the Alighi, which won the 2007 America’s sailing cup in Valencia.

In opening La Ola Fresca (“The New Wave”) in October of 2010, she didn’t just breathe life back into an old JANUARY 2011

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fruit and vegetable shop, but took it in a completely new direction. Much of the food on offer, either from the shelves or the kitchen, is sourced locally, and as much as possible is organic. This doesn’t mean that the menu consists only of Spanish or vegetarian dishes, although the best of those are available.

Herbs, spices and produce from around the world are expertly combined with local products to create enticing dishes to either eat in or take away.

The daily menu is in a snack, tapas style, but on Thursdays Westwater continues a popular tradition she built up in a local cafeteria: a night of international gastronomy that each week visits a different country. The “delicafé,” as its name describes, is as much a way of educating the notoriously conservative Valencian palate as of offering the increasing number of visitors and well-travelled locals an opportunity to enjoy regional and international dishes in a bright, friendly atmosphere.

The Institution: Bodega Casa Montaña Not a lot has changed décor-wise in the 175 years since Bodega Casa Moñtana opened its doors in El Cabanyal, the fisherman’s quarter of Valencia city.

Huge oak barrels, blackened with age, have the names of their contents written in chalk. Glass-fronted cupboards are filled with bottles of spirits and liquors.

Framed posters on the tiled walls remember the bullfights in Valencia’s Plaza de Toros of decades gone by.

Montaña was a take-away long before the phrase was invented. The bodega originally sold wine, vermouth, olive oil, vinegar and rope, either by the litre to take away or by the glass to drink in (at least in the case of the wine). Tapas of fried anchovies, bought fresh every morning, habas estofadas, a fat bean similar to an English butter bean, and patatas bravas, chunks of fried potatoes with a spicy sauce, were the basic fare. Local families soon began to ask if they could fill a container to take home.

Eighty per cent of the 800 wines on the fine-tuned list are Spanish, and a quarter of these are Valencian. The menu samples flavours from throughout the peninsula, with a particular leaning towards its main supplier only three streets away – the ­Mediterranean.

conservative palates get an education.

Manager’s lunch (about €8): Hummus with rustic bread.

Baked aubergine with red pepper and goat cheese.

And a glass of: Angosto, Valencia, Bodegas Angosto.

Recommended drinks: Wine: La Tribu, Valencia, Bodegas Angosto, €9 Cava: de Nit, Pendès, Raventós i Blanc, €18.50 Beer: Rosita, Tarragona, Cerveses La Gardénian, €2.50 La Ola Fresca, Calle Musico Magenti, 11 +34 610 026 305, www.laolafresca.com

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Manager’s lunch (about €13): Fried anchovies, delivered fresh every morning to the door.

Atun Marinado, fresh tuna marinated for two days in a secret recipe of seven spices.

And a glass of: locally produced vermouth or Impromptu, from Bodegas Hispano-Suizas, Requena.

Recommended wines: Top end: Cepa 21, Ribera del Duero, Bodegas Emilio Amoro, €38 Economic: Al Muverde, Alicante, Compañía de Vinos de Telmo Rodriguez, €9.50 Local: Virgulilla, Utiel-Requena, created by Emiliano Garcia, owner of Casa Montaña, €15 Casa Montaña, Calle José Benlliure 69, El Cabanyal +34 963 672 314 (to make a restaurant reservation; reservations not necessary for the bar), www.emilianobodega.com

Young winemakers to look out for: Spanish wines were once seen as something fit only for students to get drunk on; serving it to guests could be seen as grounds for getting ostracised from polite society. But over the last couple of decades a new breed of young winemakers has brought Spanish wines up to, and in some cases beyond, the best of anything available worldwide. Here are some picks.

• Pablo Calatayud, Celler de Roure; Maduressa, Les Alcusses • Toni Sarrión, Bodegas Mustiguillo; Finca Terrerazo, Quincha Corral • Diego Fernandez Pons, (creates for a number of bodegas in Valencia), • Sueño de Megala, • Chus Madrazo, Viñedos de Contino: Contino • Pepe Mendoza, Bodegas ­Mendoza: Santa Rosa • Rafael Palacio, Dominio de Bebei: As Sores, Louro de Bolo (white wines)

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