Offally good: La Tasquería, Madrid

This article is a part of FT Globetrotter Madrid guide

If one were to walk into La Tasquería without having done any research, it may immediately offer a sense of what to expect. The decor, which includes oak cross chairs and granite-washed floor, is understated and organic. The food? The food?

La Tasquería is not an average chichi Spanish eatery, however. Madrid is one of Europe’s top gourmet cities and this is the most innovative fine-dining establishment in Madrid. At the one-Michelin-star La Tasquería, chef Javi Estévez focuses his entire offering on casquería — Offal — Diners can choose between a variety of tasting menus to create a spectacular effect.

“Offal allows us to prepare dishes that are much more fun and attractive, with many more possibilities in terms of textures and flavour,” Estévez says. “A piece of meat like a cutlet has limited possibilities.”

The menu is available in a long or short version. Menu memoria This menu celebrates the most iconic dishes of the restaurant since its opening in 2015. As I discovered on my recent visit, you can also enjoy both dishes, with the addition of the restaurant’s signature dish, the whole head from a suckling pork, confit and fried. Even the snack courses included many parts of pig, cow and sheep that, as an avowed offal eater, I hadn’t ever discovered, with smoky pig’s snout’s salami, a bonbon of deep-fried lamb brain and a tartlet filled with diced beef testicle, Comté and tomato. 

In the past, Madrid was not averse to serving offal as part of a meal. Home cooks or no-frills eateries would often serve dishes like Callos (tripe and chickpea stew with blood sausage) gallinejas (fried lamb tripe) entresijo The membrane connecting the intestine of the lamb to the stomach is fried.. Tripe, trotters or kidneys are also commonly used to make stews in other parts of Spain. The tradition is on the decline. “In the past, perhaps it was our grandmothers or our mothers who stayed at home to cook all these products,” Estévez says. In recent years, this has changed quite a bit. 

Estévez is keen to revive the use of humble ingredients by showcasing their belonging in haute cuisine. When he was a child, he fondly remembers eating calf testicles and onions (dressed as veal filets) every week. On occasion, calf testicles and lamb brains were also served, with the latter being grilled, and the former being battered and deep-fried. In the restaurant, Estévez employs similar tricks to drum up enthusiasm, often using salty flavours from seafood to complement an array of land-based ingredients. I particularly enjoyed his focaccia layered with lime mayonnaise, beef tendons, and cockles — a fascinating experience, texturally speaking. Tendons also appear in another dish alongside razor clam — a sea creature that they bear some visual resemblance to — swimming side by side in a beautifully balanced meunière sauce. 

“In our case, the sea and mountains, as we say in Spain, have always been present for various reasons,” Estévez says. “For us, the connection has always been very good and we have always depended on it.”

Estévez also introduces zest and tang in the form of acids and spices from further afield, in order to complement and balance the gelatinous and fatty cuts he works with. “We look at other cultures to create new dishes,” says Estevez, citing North African cuisine, Peruvian cuisine, and Mexican food as influences.

Although the dishes are complex, they are presented in an approachable way. There are courses that are straight up approachable too, like a take on carbonara with salty pieces of cured pig’s head and thin slices of squid in place of spaghetti, as well as a comforting tripe, snout and leg stew — a tribute to callos.

It is the signature dish — the pig’s head — that is the real highlight, however. It is presented table-side, where Estévez pulls apart each edible morsel with surgical precision, leaving cheeks, tongue, brain, snout, and eyeballs on a plate alongside a simple salad. The presentation is theatrical and reflects the chef’s philosophy, while the meat itself is mouth-wateringly delicious.

“In the old days, also related to the time when we spent more time cooking, even people who had animals at home had a pig, and that was the most sustainable thing in the world,” Estévez says. “From a pork, you could eat the whole thing, from the snout and liver to the tripe to the loins, legs, shoulders, etc., you could also make sausages,” Estevez says. He says that by only buying suckling pork heads, rabbit kidneys, duck hearts and pig ears, the restaurant is able to save a great deal of food.  

Estévez is pleased that his work has influenced other restaurants, with offal re-emerging on menus in recent years. It’s perhaps the thrill of converting the offal-averse who gives him the most satisfaction. “I don’t think there’s anything nicer than someone, Prior to the event, He says, “Your restaurant is not going be enjoyed by your customer.” “Then [they leave] “They were delighted to have eaten foods they never imagined they would ever eat.”

What are your favorite Spanish dishes based on offal and do you have a favorite offal restaurant in Madrid? Comment below. Follow FT Globetrotter for updates Instagram Discover our most recent stories first

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