# Seven restaurants to sample Spain’s hottest new chefs – without blowing the budget

The country is home to some of the world’s best modern cuisine, and these trailblazers serve inventive dishes at affordable prices.

Since 2002, Spain’s gastronomic year has kicked off at , a jamboree where top chefs from all over the world show-cook, share dishes of rarefied ingredients and outline new culinary concepts. Wrapping up the three-day event is the crowning of Spain’s best young chef (often a duo) or “revelation”. This year’s seven candidates ranged from restaurants as far afield as Galicia in the north-west to Tenerife, Seville and Madrid. Most cook at intimate spaces with few tables, and offer ingredients and cooking techniques you would be hard-pushed to find on a British menu without breaking the bank.

We start in Galicia, with the winners of the .

## Restaurante Simpar, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia



*Photograph: Carlos Manzano Alonso*

Pilgrims have been walking to Santiago for over a millennium, and now gastronomes are following to discover this Michelin-star restaurant south of the monumental cathedral. Opened in summer 2023 by Axel Smyth, 33, a native of the city, with his Ecuadorian partner Claudia Merchán, 32, it offers a sophisticated take on Galicia’s pristine produce from the rugged coast to its verdant hills.

Seven tables host a 14-course Simpar (€110) or 11-course Conocer (€85) menus, both starting with an inventive play on mushrooms and ending with a deconstructed Santiago tart.

If you’re a tripe fan, indulge in Simpar’s award-winning stew with chickpeas and don’t miss the ham _croquetas_ – another prize winner. Other exceptional concoctions are rooster with chocolate and truffle, and scallops (the pilgrims’ symbol) in a meunière sauce. From the wine list, which is 70% Galician, Axel suggests Quinta da Muradella (€84) made from the white Treixadura grape.

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## Restaurante Sisé, Lleida, Catalonia

We’re in Catalan territory at 27-year-old Ángel Esteve’s buoyant restaurant in Lleida, which capitalises on local suppliers in the Pyrenees, in Aragón and on the coast. Idiosyncratically named after his grandparents’ apartment, which is on the sixth (_sisé_ in Catalan) floor, it has eight tables facing an open kitchen. “We don’t want to hide what we do,” says Angel, much influenced by his time at the top Catalan restaurant El Celler de Can Roca.

The menu reflects childhood food memories, as do his sister’s charming wall drawings, and specialises in charcoal grills and stews that change weekly. There is something earthy here, from a starter of artichoke, comté cheese and truffle (€16), to mains of barbecued lamb with calçot onions and romesco sauce (€21), or rice with quail and burrata cream (€28). Angel’s signature dessert is a chocolate tart rivalled by a calorie-light teaser of blackberries, goat cheese and galette (both €7). Unusual wines (€25-€150) are national and French.

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## Restaurante Ausiàs, Pedreguer, Alicante



*Photograph: Carlos Manzano Alonso*

As Felicia Guerra, the wife of Ausiàs Signes, puts it, they are “in a random town of 7,000 inhabitants”, so they hardly expected instant success. After meeting at Madrid’s Cordon Bleu school, they have welcomed customers from afar to their slick restaurant of just seven tables in Pedreguer, which is inland from the Costa Blanca fishing port of Dénia and an hour’s drive from Alicante. “It means we manage to fill the restaurant, so there’s no waste, which keeps our prices reasonable,” says Ausiàs, who heads the kitchen, leaving front of house to Felicia.

They preserve traditional flavours, methods and ingredients – but with a twist. Their tasting menu (€84 for 12 courses or €62 for 10) is strong on reinvented seafood such as cuttlefish with cauliflower, yeast and bergamot, or baked grouper with roast cabbage and pickled seaweed. Carnivores despair not, as roast lamb also features. End with a luscious ode to Valencian oranges, an emulsion of orange, olive oil and saffron. The wine list (€29-€500) focuses on small Mediterranean wineries and rare champagnes.

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## Restaurante Arsa, Logroño, La Rioja



*Photograph: Eduardo García*

In the lively historical capital of La Rioja, this place is run by Beatriz Fernández and her husband Rodrigo. Since opening under a year ago, the quirkily decorated restaurant of 22 tables hasn’t looked back.

An appetiser of chilled orange soup with bluefin tuna tartare (€6) might continue with a starter of wild boar stew with oloroso sherry (€16) or scallops in broth with cauliflower (€18). Mains include turbot with seaweed, semi-dried tomato and black olives (€24) and wood pigeon smoked with vine stalk alongside roasted chestnuts and lemon in brine (€26). Desserts range from a pomegranate and rose sorbet (€8) to pumpkin cake with olive oil and thyme ice-cream (€8). True gourmets should order the 12-course tasting menu (€70) backed up by inexpensive wines and sherries from Andalucía and La Rioja. For an unusual tipple, Rodrigo recommends a Riojan white, Eraso Azala (€25) – “not quite orange, more dark golden” – made from grapes in their skin.

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## Restaurante Lur, Madrid



*Photograph: Edu Gorostiza*

“Hospitality and restaurants are in my blood – I’m the fourth generation,” says 22-year-old Lucia Gutiérrez, owner and chef of Lur in Madrid’s Legazpi district. Thanks to the nearby catalysts of Madrid Rio, a new urban park, and the Matadero contemporary arts centre, this southern neighbourhood has been energised. So, just over a year ago, Lucia took over the restaurant space of her now retired father.

With only five tables, its spacious interior of natural woods and potted olive trees exudes calm, a quality reflected in her meticulous cooking and plating. The seven-course tasting menu (€87) remains seasonal, though vegetables dominate and Lucia injects a fine line between savoury and sweet. Sourced from small producers, some ingredients hail from the Basque Country where Lucia worked near San Sebastián. The name itself, Lur, is Basque for “land”.

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## Restaurante Moral, Santa Cruz de Tenerife



*Photograph: Edu Gorostiza*

In the centre of sunny Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenerife, and the ferry gateway to other islands, is Restaurante Moral – a name referring to the mulberry tree and to the restaurant’s ethics. It was opened last summer by Canarian couple Icíar and Juan Carlos Pérez-Alcalde, who met working at Poemas by Hermanos Padrón, La Palma’s top restaurant. Moral brings inspired cuisine to locals and visitors in the serene setting of a converted mansion with only six tables.

Island produce dominates, whether in the five-course tasting menu (€50) or à la carte choices. Here you have a starter of aubergine with eel, yoghurt and mushrooms (€19), main courses of duck in an orange sauce spiked with dried fruits (€27) or skate with mussel and parsley sauce (€25). Wash down a dessert of roast beetroot, passion fruit and flowers (€7) with a Tenerife wine recommended by Juan Carlos – a light, aromatic Finca Vegas made from the white Listán grape (€26).

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## Restaurante Leartá, Seville



*Photograph: Mateo Lippera*

Hidden down a side street south of the burgeoning Alameda, Leartá conjures up ambitious dishes that fuse Andalucían tradition with technique. At the helm is Manu Lachica, 30, a true Sevillano, and his wife, Rita Llanes, a 23-year-old Catalan. After working together in Galicia, they opened Leartá less than a year ago.

“We want people to feel at home as well as showcase Seville’s trades such as hand-painted tiles and handmade furniture,” says Manu.

With an open kitchen, the restaurant seats 12 and offers 10 complex dishes (€72). Each plays with textures and temperatures. Wild boar comes with burrata, a chilled pumpkin broth includes salted kaki fruit and sea urchin cream, while a sweet edge comes in celery macerated in herbal syrup with butter from the yeast of wine barrels.

Teetotallers can revel in delicious kombuchas (€6) infused with fruits such as limequats, ginger and mint. Wines (€35-€147), including sherries, are from emerging Andalucían vintners as well as national and international labels.

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