Meraki #15 - Pablo Restaurant

MERAKI

Hotels & Fine Dining

PABLO RESTAURANT

Haute cuisine in Leon

Pablo Restaurant

Haute cuisine in Leon

This is the story of a restaurant that comes from effort and improvement, which brings together two generations, carries a Michelin star on its shoulders and where we can enjoy a gastronomic journey through the province of Leon.

FOUR SEASONS RITZ SPA

Located at the foot of the Cathedral of Leon, the Pablo Restaurant is a place of pilgrimage for lovers of high gastronomy in Leon due to its exquisite dishes that highlight local products along with an increasingly re fi ned culinary technique. The raw material of the environment treated with the utmost respect, in addition to the successful updating of traditional recipes, allows to fulfill the goal of its owners: let us know that we are eating in Leon through a gastronomic tour around the province without the need to get up from our chair.

Viagem exclusiva entre Ocidente e Oriente

Estamos no spa de um dos mais emblemáticos espaços de Lisboa, o Hotel Ritz, um compromisso entre a modernidade e a tradição. Fomos conhecer um dos seus tratamentos de assinatura - “Sete Colinas de Lisboa” - um luxo clássico de puro prazer, inspirado pelos ingredientes portugueses mais naturais e tradicionais.

IT ALL BEGAN IN 1975

Pablo Rojo and Maruja Ramos worked for several years in London and returned home with the firm intention of opening a small business. That's how in 1975 they opened a restaurant in an industrial park on the outskirts of Leon, whose base was the gastronomy of this province. Frog legs, ajoarriero cod, trout soups or sweet breads were the dishes most requested by a clientele that began to travel from various parts of the city to taste their elaborations.

Three decades later, the reins of Pablo Restaurant are in the hands of the second generation, formed by Yolanda Rojo, daughter of Pablo and Maruja and current head of the dining room, together with her husband, chef Juanjo Losada. This couple gave the establishment a 180 degree turn, offering a new vision that never forgets their parents' legacy.

MICHELIN STAR

It was in 2019 that they received the Michelin star but chef Losada had been making creations at a dizzying pace for some time. He never attended a cooking school, he is a self- taught chef who became interested in this world almost at the same time that he met Yolanda Rojo. When he decided to take the leap into the professional world, he considered the possibility of opening a small gastronomic cafeteria inside the in-laws' restaurant. Once located in the center of the capital, it is when they decide to keep Pablo's name, thus continuing a restaurant with several years of existence.

Both seasonality and proximity are a constant here, so each week the menu is updated according to the products of the environment and the season. The tasting menu, available in two versions (8 moments and 12 moments), combines techniques such as robata, sous vide or low temperature cooking. Some of the dishes that are part of the current menu are: cod, scallops, crayfish, pickles or wild rabbit.

NEW SEASON PROTAGONISTS

Some products are also extracted from the province of Leon, such as fresh vegetables from the La Bañeza area, specifically from Bercianos del Páramo; bovine meat brought directly from El Capricho ( Jiménez de Jamuz ) ; the botillo, the blood sausage and the cecina of the Valley of the Esla; cheeses from Jabares de los Oteros and Ardón; the Cantabrian Mountains trout; mushrooms selected by cooperatives and small suppliers or vegetable sprouts from Dehesa de Valdepuerca...

But they also obtain products from areas close to Leon, including Galician fish slaughtered by the Japanese technique ike jime, which improves the flavor and prolongs the shelf life, or the frogs distributed by the prestigious company Grenoucerie de Zamora, as well as the organic peas from Tudela de Duero or the small huntings from Tierra de Campos in Valladolid. The most frequent origin designations in their wine tastings are El Bierzo, Valdeorras, Cangas and Ribera del Duero, although they also work with wines from all over the country.

MERAKI

Hotels & Fine Dining

CEO/Editor CARLA BRANCO

Photos RESTAURANTE PABLO

Story #15 November 2020