Fine restaurants in the Spanish Pyrenees
Three of Huesca's newest restaurants have been awarded Michelin stars
It is home to some of Spain's top ski resorts and most "mesmerically beautiful" scenery, but Huesca is little visited by non-Spaniards.
However, two recent events are helping to put the province "on the map", said Paul Richardson in the Financial Times. One was the opening in 2023 of Canfranc Estación, a grand hotel in a long-abandoned 1920s railway station high in the mountains. The other was the award, late last year, of Michelin stars to three of Huesca's newest restaurants, all located in villages with fewer than 200 inhabitants.
The news of this gastronomic flowering has drawn a growing number of "well-to-do" visitors from Madrid and elsewhere, and is attracting attention further afield too. From Zaragoza, the capital of the wider region of Aragón, I drove for 80 minutes to Sardas, in the forested foothills of the Pyrenees. Home now to only 35 "mostly elderly" residents, this once-thriving village is typical of what is known as la España vaciada ("emptied Spain").
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
However, a group of stone barns on its fringes is now the restaurant La Era de los Nogales. Its chef, Toño Rodriguez, told me that he has found various advantages to being in a small village, including the ability to build close relationships with local producers. He creates 18-course menus of "highly worked" dishes reflecting "the terroir of northern Huesca" ("the mushrooms, the truffles, the fine butter and Somontano olive oils, the trout from the Cinca river"), but despite such sophistication, the restaurant's dining room feels relaxed and lively.
Next came Restaurante Ansils, in the high-mountain village of Anciles, where siblings Iris and Bruno Jordán offer refined takes on traditional recipes learnt from their grandmother, such as cabbage-and-potato trinxat.
My final stop was Casa Arcas, in nearby Villanova, site of some equally "serious" cooking (I enjoyed the artichokes and pigeon eggs in a "crunchy" ham-and-potato cream) by the Basque chef Ainhoa Lozano.
A five-course menu here costs €46, a price typical of the rates at these rural restaurants.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
5 seriously spooky cartoons about HalloweenCartoons Artists take on the GOP boogeyman, a white sheet, and more
-
Political cartoons for October 25Cartoons Saturday’s political cartoons include hospital bill trauma, Independence Day, and more
-
Roasted squash and apple soup recipeThe Week Recommends Autumnal soup is full of warming and hearty flavours
-
Roasted squash and apple soup recipeThe Week Recommends Autumnal soup is full of warming and hearty flavours
-
6 well-crafted log homesFeature Featuring a floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace in Montana and a Tulikivi stove in New York
-
Film reviews: A House of Dynamite, After the Hunt, and It Was Just an AccidentFeature A nuclear missile bears down on a U.S. city, a sexual misconduct allegation rocks an elite university campus, and a victim of government terror pursues vengeance
-
Book reviews: ‘Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife’ and ‘Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How to Fix It’Feature Gertrude Stein’s untold story and Jane Leavy’s playbook on how to save baseball
-
Rachel Ruysch: Nature Into ArtFeature Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through Dec. 7
-
Music reviews: Olivia Dean, Madi Diaz, and Hannah FrancesFeature “The Art of Loving,” “Fatal Optimist,” and “Nested in Tangles”
-
Gilbert King’s 6 favorite books about the search for justiceFeature The journalist recommends works by Bryan Stevenson, David Grann, and more
-
Spaniards seeing red over bullfightingUnder the Radar Shock resignation of top matador is latest blow in culture war over tradition that increasingly divides Spain