Saying that a restaurant relies on the tradition of its environment to update it is, at this point, almost like saying nothing, unless nuances are added to the statement. It is one of those clichés that, by dint of repetition, has lost some validity. This is the case, except in cases in which the gastronomic offer shows that there is a real commitment to the environment, to its pantry and to its memory of flavors beyond a simple statement. And this is what happens in ConSentido.
Carlos Hernández’s restaurant couldn’t be more Salamancan. Due to its location, right in the center, in front of the city market; for his proposal, based on the most immediate pantry, for his research work on recipes and uses that in some cases are already in decline. And because of the limitations that it imposes on itself, based on what surrounds it, which become an added value here.
But what Hernández and his team do in ConSentido is an exercise in memory research that goes further. It is an investigation of the taste memory of the environment, but also of the personal memory. The chef has extensive experience behind him, a journey that has taken him through kitchens such as Rekondo, Nineu, Zuberoa, El Celler de Can Roca, Elkano, Lera, La Cosmopolita, Diverxo and Cataria before taking charge of his own project and that, in some way, is present at all times in his kitchen.
How does all this fit into a restaurant with a philosophy that adheres to its surroundings? With technical nods, here and there, with a passion for the grill in which Aitor Arregi’s imprint can be glimpsed. Or with dishes like the gilda, a gilda from Salamanca, as they present it when they arrive at the table, which without losing sight of the Basque tradition is able to blend into the local through the use of a smoked Iberian mogote.
It is also interesting to see how the restaurant highlights the kitchen work, carried out in plain sight, behind a bar that presides over the room and in which there is space for eight diners who enjoy their menu in constant contact with the team.
These are, the local, the chef’s background and direct contact with the kitchen, the common threads that will direct the diner’s journey. And it is the first who will take the lead, something that is evident from the first moment, with the arrival of a traditional candeal bread, another, made of malted wheat, made for the restaurant by La Tahona, a well-known bakery of the city, and a wonderful oil, Soleae, organic and made in Herguijuela de La Sierra with ocal olive, a native variety also known as gordal castellana, from centuries-old olive trees.
The first bites are an immersion in Iberian pork: semi-cured prey in rancid wine, Iberian pork terrine with red fruits and mogote gilda; rancio ham fritter with a veil of bacon on a rancio wine sauce, a restaurant classic, and a slaughter muffin, really tasty, perhaps a nod to the cook’s Andalusian period, with lemon thyme and paprika.
Oleron oyster, an off-the-menu offering that is the only exception to the self-imposed rule of proximity and that the chef explains when he serves it. These are oysters from a friendly producer, a raw material that he considers exceptional, which they fry lightly with a tapioca batter and which they bring to their land through what they present as a ponzu charra sauce, made with homemade vinegar, green lemon. the Las Arribes region and reduced brandy among other ingredients. The oyster is tasty, with tight meat due to the frying that, however, maintains all its juiciness and that characteristic iodide, almost sweet at some point, which fits wonderfully with the citrus fruits and the slight bitterness of the sauce.
Next comes a sequence dedicated to the Tormes trout, which the restaurant brings from Pizsoya, a fish farm in Alba de Tormes to vindicate, in some way, the trout tradition of that river: very fine salad tartlet, with trout belly ; smoked trout fat butter accompanied by pressed rye bread, powerful and perfect to accompany the loin of fish, smoked with shoots in the restaurant and much leaner.
With garlic soup we turn our attention to the most immediate tradition and the exercise of reformulation: defatted garlic soup, served on chorizo ??crumbs, accompanied by a crumb of grilled bread, which is soaked, and a head of lettuce also grilled. It is accompanied by a dough empanadilla enriched with Iberian pork lard filled with farinato, a local sausage made with pork fat, bread, paprika and a characteristic touch, and to a certain extent refreshing in this dish, of anise grains. The whole is tasty and complex, traditional and modern at the same time, loaded with roasted flavors, a certain unctuousness, light bitterness, the counterpoint of barely cooked vegetables.
The menu reserves, from this point, a section for legumes that begins with grilled Pedrosillano chickpeas stewed with cod tripe, one of the few marine products with an ancient tradition in the area, thanks to the work of the muleteers, which is presented in a tasty and intense spoon moment.
If the previous dish is closer to the tradition without reformulating, the El Barco de Ávila beans with a blue duck stew, its grilled breast and roasted green pepper accompanied by a bean, a fried dough that reinterprets a traditional preparation, filled with a stew of duck thighs and wings with a hoisin charro sauce that they prepare with oxidized prunes and reduced rancid wine, they combine tradition, a touch of academicism and a certain look at other past cuisines, yes, through the local filter .
The savory section ends with a veal heart gizzard, cooked whole on the grill and painted with a Paris brown sauce. Product and ember, without embellishments.
In the desserts, the chef looks back to his roots, to El Barco de Ávila, where, he explains, the carob was a humble food, currently rarely used, but very common, particularly in times of scarcity. Hernández comes from a family of millers, who at the time also frequently worked with this product and to whom he pays tribute with two desserts: a carob berlina, filled with a pastry cream of this same product, and a carob ice cream, served on a crumble and accompanied by a carob cookie. The petit-fours, for their part, are a final reference to nearby products and preparations: quince jelly, almond cookie with strawberry compote and a Ledesma doughnut.
Everything fits within the philosophy that Carlos Hernández imposes on himself, in an exercise of exploring the environment passed through a personal filter in which the ember, the cuisine that he defines as “candela”, is the protagonist. The result is absolutely Salamancan, but also completely new; It is tasty and original, capable of exploring the intensity of the products, in particular the possibilities of Iberian pork, from elegance; integrating winks that fit without anything creaking.
ConSentido’s is a gourmet, succulent, ember-filled and slow-burning cuisine that assumes, in the chef’s words, that “every tradition was at some point avant-garde” and that, from that point of view, loses the fear of betraying the legacy. to enrich it, rethink it and take it to its field.
Salamanca, like western Castilla y León in general, is going through a very interesting moment in gastronomic terms. And it does so thanks to an intelligent reformulation of the legacy that different chefs, each with their own style and from their personal experience, are capable of bringing to their field, complementing each other in a certain way, enriching their environment and giving rise to a new Castilian cuisine that It is capable of satisfying, thrilling at times, surprising and entertaining with deep roots in the territory and a self-conscious look. And ConSentido is a great place to take a look at this discreet but unstoppable revolution.
