Zucchini flowers, broths, and a melon: an Andalusian poem
Leartà in Seville is open and welcoming, loyal to its premises and promises
Screaming summer delights. Are zucchini flowers are the bouquets all of us food gals would carry to the table?
I’d say yes, absolutely, and take a bite.
Stuffed, fried, or raw in a salad, they are an ephemeral ode to the fleeting characters of the summery season and a jewellery piece for any greengrocer.
They live a short life between June and September and an even shorter lifespan, being born blessed by morning dew and only dying with creases after the midday heat.
We pay a gastronomic homage to summer when we pick them, refreshed from the fridge and sometimes with their tiny fruit still attached.
Summer minestrone is a tepid affair - at most, but it could be a chilled gazpacho, and no harm would be done to our tastebuds.
Temperatures are relative, and it doesn’t add or subtract value to a dish the unbearable absolutism of consuming something at designed temperatures. The rediscovery of tepid, or tepid to cold, is one of the winning gastronomic discoveries of recent years, and I praise any restaurant that plays with it.
Watermelon and feta salad with some sprinkled mint leaves.
Or, like in this case, honeydew melons and Spanish ham. A fruit and an animal protein. A summery, very summery combination can crash down the defences our appetite puts up against eating when it’s so boiling outside.
The game changes when you modify the state of one of the ingredients.
In this case, the animal part becomes evanescent and sublimates into a simmered solution, an infusion that maintains the aroma of jamón but without its corporal presence.
If it wasn’t for some delicate touches of local food and culture, Leartà could thrive in a buzzy neighbourhood in London or Paris, part of a gastronomic diaspora that brings excellent cuisine from north to south and vice versa everywhere in Europe.
But an ajoblanco with a delicate granita and a mollete with dried tomatoes firmly plant this new adventure of former Bagà cook (Manu Lachica) with his lifetime partner (Rita Llanes) deeply into Seville. If a restaurant in Seville allows you to feel the dynamism of this millenarian city, this would be it—stepping into a lovely and lively eatery, out of the heat and into a refreshing take on local and global.
Algae, white shrimps from nearby Isla Cristina, and lots of vegetables from the sunny orchards of Andalusia. Some Al-Andalus flavours and some pimentón can coexist in a fusion that makes sense and makes plates.
Bright broths and slow-simmered reductions act as a counterbalancing power to the freshness of almost raw vegetables.
No meat is on the menu (for the moment or forever). Still, in a completely sustainable manner, its reminiscence is present in two preparations, two broths that can prescind from the actual meat, carrying its flavours into our tastebuds.
Is this a new interpretation of sustainable eating?
Broths may well be nutrient-rich and flavorful. All that remains can be consumed as a byproduct or as filling for other foods, such as pies—zero waste.
Is there Pedrito’s Bagà somewhere?
Of course, the positive relationship lingers in a cuisine clearly defined by its interpretation at Leardà.
Instead, I would argue that Bagà and Leartà could be neighbours, and we, as customers, could enjoy both equally, in our ways and with different purposes.
A remarkable note is that “the product” is on the plate.
Still, the plate is not an altar.
Indeed, it doesn’t make this restaurant one of the old “temples of products” that are slowly strangling Spanish gastronomy, tying it up to products and away from innovation, techniques, and anything non-canonical according to this peculiar religion built around restaurants that decided to elect products above preparations, and fire above anything else.
As with every almost religious fervour, it’s limiting and blinding. It’s exhilarating to see a new generation of cooks and chefs step out of this path and create their gastronomic narrative where things must make sense.
Like the bread service.
Bread is treated like another boring piece of a Michelin puzzle in most restaurants nowadays. It’s a senseless intermezzo with no other reason for existence than to serve some sourdough - even in places where the local bread would be sufficiently attractive to be served - and the usual tropes of oil and butter.
Leartà is more intelligent: it integrates the bread service as a course that features bread instead. It serves a glorious dried tomato paste with a typical local mollete bread, which is neither stuffy nor out of place.
The tomatoes and “cheese” served here could dialogue with Andrea Leali’s tomato tartare. This is another meaningful indicator that there’s a clear tendency at the forefront of gastronomy to take back dignity and infuse vegetables with all the importance given to meat until now.
The Other Gourmand is a beautiful project in which all aspects of gastronomy are investigated and discussed.
Restaurants are just one piece of the gastronomic puzzle, and despite traditional gastronomic journalism and the proliferation of lists and guides, they are not nearly the most important.
Nor are chefs.
This is why this blog only sparingly discusses restaurants, but when we do, it’s to tell a story. In this case, it’s a love story, and as a customer, I felt beautiful.
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Useful information:
Leartà - C. Padre Tarín, 6, Casco Antiguo, 41002 Sevilla, Spain (leartasevilla.com)
It is not a vegetarian restaurant, but its courses are mostly plant-based, and the use of animals is minimal, such as seafood and broth. Like the one below, sheep milk and sheep broth are used as sides to the main ingredient of this plate: sunflower seeds. Topped with bee pollen, it is quite an extraordinary plate that seems like a bridge between cultures.
What others say:
Michelin says: “This restaurant exudes a passion for food, for craftsmanship and for what they describe here as “food for thought” and takes it from a word that refers to a meeting place for different Andalucian trades and skills.”
Repsol says, “It is noted that there is a lot of emotion in each course. Passion is also reflected on the plate, of course, where they are surprised with classic recipes but reinvented in their way with a straightforward objective: to give them the seal.”
Gastroactitud says: “Two or three ingredients are enough to excite you with each proposal. It is not in vain that his CV includes stays in Culler de Pau and Bagá, restaurants that have marked his line of thought. As the menu progresses, its suggestions increase in number of heartbeats.”
Diario de Sevilla says of the cooks: “They all come from the world of haute cuisine and have come together to offer a closer version of this type of establishment, where the most artisanal version of cuisine is practised. The name is a modification of "loyalty" pronounced in Andalusian to demonstrate its philosophy and the "honest" way of expressing it.”
ABC says: “Everything is made with love, and each ingredient has been selected with the utmost dedication. They know the producers and have been choosing each food for months.”
7Canibales says: “The duality of the Andalusian landscape, between mountain and sea, also permeates the menu, offering not only an echo of its geography in several of its passes, where flavours of land and sea are combined.”
JCCapel says: “Young cuisine, written in capital letters in a corner of the old town. An exciting project where passion, technique and talent are not wasted.”
Like Niko Romito's Reale: not a vegetarian restaurant, but the tasting menu is all plant-based. And it's delicious.