O Salnés, the region in which towns such as Cambados, O Grove or Sanxenxo are located, is one of the mythical wine areas in Galicia, a very touristy territory during the summer months that recovers calm and breathes the rest of the year. another rhythm.
Near the geographic center of the region, on the banks of the Umia River and just 3 kilometers from the historic center of Cambados, in a mill with almost two centuries of history hidden among vineyards, is a place that is one of the gastronomic secrets of the area. , the Muiño de Rudiño.
Teo Ianotta is Italian, from the south, although he has already spent half his life in Galicia. For a time he ran an Italian restaurant in the city of Pontevedra and then spent several years as head waiter and sommelier at the Miguel González restaurant, on the outskirts of Ourense, at the time it got its star. Michelin.
At that stage his interest in the world of wine was growing and, due to a series of fortunate coincidences, during a specialization course after leaving the Ourense restaurant, the possibility arose of rehabilitating this century-old mill and converting it into a restaurant. The location, in the heart of the O Salnés vineyards, with a dozen wineries within a radius of just one kilometer, in a rural environment, but at the same time close to the main urban centers of the area, was key for it to take the decision.
After three years and enormous personal involvement, Muiño de Rudiño is now a consolidated reality. A peculiar reality, which resists labels and which is easier to define by what it is not: it is not a typical restaurant, it is not an Italian cuisine restaurant, but it is not a place focused on Galician cuisine either. And it doesn’t look like anything in its surroundings.
El Muiño de Rudiño is a restaurant, but at times you have the feeling that it is also a window into Teo’s head, who works alone in the kitchen and makes time to go out to the dining room, suggest wines and, if the restaurant It is not crowded, sit for a moment and chat with each table. As he himself says: “Not a classic restaurant, that’s for sure. It is a place to come to eat well, to come to drink well, to forget about preconceived ideas. It is a place where you come to enjoy around a table and a drink, but it is not a restaurant in the conventional sense. “It’s my thing.”
And that is exactly it: a place that is nourished by the environment, without a doubt, but also by the personality and background of Teo, who with the help of Flor Mato with the sweets and Alex Leiva with the desserts, runs this corner and gives it an important dose of its personality.
But what do you eat here, then? We could say that what Muiño proposes is a cuisine with 50% from Galicia, especially in the raw materials, and 50% from Italy, present in the conception of many of the dishes. All this accompanied by a monumental winery, again with one foot in the Atlantic and the other in the Mediterranean, in which through nearly 950 references a journey through local wines, very well represented, and by references is proposed. Italian, of which the restaurant has a small collection of old bottles to get lost in.
Bringing all this down to reality, it must be said that Ianotta’s cuisine changes almost daily, with the season, with the market and with what his character suggests for each service. In these weeks, for example, there is an abundance of local seafood, crab, mussels or sea urchins, but also mushrooms from the surrounding forests and spoon dishes, so present in Galician autumn recipes. And along with them, artisan-made pastas and Italian products that provide a very interesting, unprecedented counterpoint.
An example? The carpaccio of amanita caesarea and Cambados scallop with which my menu began. A wonderful autumn sea and mountains. Or the smoked and citrus sea bass, with a richer texture than natural fish and an elegant smoke aroma that does not mask the product. Both look directly at the surroundings while, next, the bufala Campana burrata with mortadella and pistachio mousse is one of the distinctly Italian twists that appear here and there throughout the menu.
Eggplant parmigiana, a traditional recipe that Teo, originally from Campania, masters and proposes without updates; a homemade dish that turns out to be very fine and that, just when you thought you were beginning to understand the labels for this proposal, it throws you off. Italian cuisine, then. Nor how do the beans with octopus stewed in a shellfish broth that arrive next fit in there? That is the game, a permanent zig-zag that, despite everything, makes sense and works. “If I enjoy cooking and you enjoy eating, labels don’t matter. Labels are for those who are bored,” says the cook as he brings a dish to the table.
That’s how it is. The menu runs through the best of two cuisines that meet: the product of one place, the technique of the other; the native raw material touched from a different perspective. And the personality of the cook, already half Galician, although Italian to the core, as a common thread.
Another good example are the mafaldine, which are proposed with crab, a species in full season, and caesarean amanita. They should have been boletus, but my intolerance towards that variety causes the mushroom to repeat itself. No problem. On the contrary.
The dish brings together all the power of seafood in a proposal that initially arouses suspicion among the local public most attached to tradition, as I was able to see from the comments of an adjacent table, but which finally manages to convince them. It is powerful, tasty, with all the flavor of crab, whose juices are buttered and a faint aroma of undergrowth always in the background. It will please those who enjoy an autumnal pasta dish, those who appreciate the intensity of winter Atlantic seafood and those who, like me, refuse to choose and come here with the sole purpose of enjoying, without imposing corsets that only serve to set limits.
Spaghetti, made in an artisanal workshop. They are served with sea urchin gonads and autumn truffle. Once again the sea and the mountains, once again one eye on local products and another on Italian cuisine. Once again a lucky encounter.
With dessert we return to the classic and homemade, a pleasant pannacotta with red fruits. And with coffee and amaretti, to the conversation with the cook, finally released from service.
Everything fits into Rudiño’s Muiño: a kitchen that is a reflection of whoever is behind it, a place that is part restaurant and part the host’s house; a local pantry that shines in preparations different from the usual ones, which sometimes come closer to the northwest imagery and other times veer towards the Italian. Everything fits, except the labels. It’s hard to find one that adapts to this format: Fusion cuisine? Italian cuisine with Galician raw materials? Product cuisine? None of those formulas adapt, Ianotta’s is a cuisine that has some of all that, but also something else that escapes definitions.
Impulse, homemade cuisine, from here and there; mestizo cuisine, but from the territory. Seasonal, market cuisine, but with something more, with a winery in which to get lost. Pasta with crab and mushrooms accompanied by a Dolcetto d’Alba in the heart of Rías Baixas, why not? You come to Muiño de Rudiño to get rid of prejudices and let yourself be carried away by Teo’s proposal.
In a region like O Salnés, with a cuisine marked by the weight of an unquestionable marine product and by the omnipresence of local wines, O Muiño de Rudiño is fresh air, a complement, a rarity of eclectic cuisine that comes to add and to diversify options; a place that should be noted when visiting the area, because the gastronomic richness of a territory is in its product and its tradition, but also in its versatility, in its ability to innovate and read its raw materials from new points of view. . And if Rudiño’s Muiño is rich in anything, it is all of this.
