NETTING a Michelin star or several may be every chef's or restaurant owner's ultimate dream – the Olympic gold medal and the Oscar of one's catering career – but those based in Spain are just as focused on chasing the sun.
Alkimia restaurant in Barcelona, one of three establishments to earn its third Repsol ‘sun’ (photo: Guía Repsol)
Finding your way into the Guía Repsol (Repsol Guide) means your eatery is automatically among the best in the country – and you may well be Michelin-starred at the same time, since the calibre and quality required for either is very similar.
Whilst Spain has long been known for its full-flavoured, multi-faceted cuisine – radically different from region to region, but never bland or boring – it also has a lifelong reputation for being among the cheapest first-world countries to eat out in; its quality-versus-price ratio, or value for money, is exceptional.
Chefs Jordi Vilà, Aitor Arregi and Paco Pérez showing off their third sol for their restaurants (photo: Sofía Moro and Alfredo Cáliz for the Repsol Guide)
To this end, although there are, of course, plenty of restaurants with Michelin stars and Repsol 'suns' with menu prices that would make the average earner faint, plenty more have full-sized taster menus at around the €50 mark, and there is no shortage of either where you can munch your way through a complete meal for under €40 or even under €30; in fact, quite a handful will feed you so well you won't be hungry for the next fortnight in exchange for a bill of around €15 or €20 per head.
The 'Sol' bit of 'Repsol' translates as 'sun' – the 'Rep' bit means Refinería de Petróleos ('Petroleum Refinery') – and you might have noticed, whenever you pass a Repsol service station, that its logo is a sort of abstract sun.
In addition to those restaurants who have kept their 'suns', or soles, this year, another 96 nationwide have earned their first sol or an additional one for the 2021 Guide, which features a total of 618 eateries across the country.
Also, Repsol has launched a brand-new award for this year – the Sol Sostenible, or 'Sustainable Sun', which went to chef Eneko Atxa from the iconic and world-famous Basque restaurant Azurmendi.
His election as prizewinner was based upon his being 'an example of living in harmony with nature, making good use of resources around him, and working closely together with traditional local producers', according to the organisers of this year's awards ceremony.
Now for the names of those much sought-after restaurants that have 'caught the sun' this year.
Three suns
This year, the Guía Repsol features 43 restaurants in Spain holding the maximum distinction of three soles, the national equivalent of three Michelin stars.
Miramar restaurant on the Costa Brava serves up Llançà prawn with a seaweed dressing (photo: Guía Repsol)
Newcomers for the 2021 Guide are Alkimia, in Barcelona, run by chef Jordi Vilà; Elkano, in Getaria in the Basque province of Guipúzcoa – of which the capital is San Sebastián, where the prizegiving was held – with chef Aitor Arregi at the helm, and Miramar, in Llançà, Girona province, led by chef Paco Pérez.
All three were present at the awards ceremony, as were Spain's existing three-sun chefs who wanted to offer their support to new talents as they stepped up on the stage to grab their coveted yellow spheres.
Two suns
New holders of two Repsol soles – 11 in total - are Es Tragón in the Cap Negret area of Sant Antoni de Portmany, or San Antonio, Ibiza; Cal Paradis in Vall d'Alba in the province of Castellón – in the same district, La Plana Alta, as Benicàssim, Almassora, Castellón city and Oropesa de Mar – Casa Pepa in the small northern Costa Blanca town of Ondara, Alicante province; Saiti, in Valencia city; Aürt and Hisop, in Barcelona; Kappo and Saddle, in the Madrid region; As Garzas and Casa Marcelo in the province of A Coruña, Galicia; and Kiro Sushi in La Rioja.
One sun
Restaurants in Spain with their first Repsol sol total 82 and are based in every single region and most provinces.
You'll find these – and many of them have set menus ranging from €15 to €20, so you can try them out whatever the size of your usual dining-out budget – in the provinces of Zaragoza (Aragón), Guadalajara and Toledo (Castilla-La Mancha), Burgos, León, Palencia, Valladolid and Salamanca (Castilla y León), Álava, the capital of which is Vitoria, Bizkaia, of which the capital is Bilbao, and Guipúzcoa (Basque Country), Badajoz and Cáceres (Extremadura), A Coruña, Pontevedra and Ourense (Galicia), and in the single-province regions of Asturias, La Rioja, Navarra, Madrid and Cantabria.
Yoko Japanese restaurant in Barbate (Cádiz province) dishing up red tuna nigri topped with sea-urchin roe (photo: Guía Repsol)
In Catalunya, six new one-sol restaurants can be found in the city and province of Barcelona (Els Pescadors, Nairod, Nectari, Sato i Tanaka, Tresmacarrons, and UMA); and in the province of Girona, Bo.TiC (Corçà), Casamar (Llafranc), L'Aliança d'Anglès (Anglès), Gaig in the Hotel Torre del Remei (Bolvir), and Villa Más (Sant Feliu de Guíxols).
In Andalucía, two restaurants in the province of Cádiz – Código de Barra, in Cádiz city, and Yoko, a Japanese eatery in Barbate – have earned their first sol, as has La Cuchara de San Lorenzo, in the San Lorenzo area of Córdoba city and Sobretablas, in the city of Sevilla; and the Costa del Sol lives up to its name with four, Kaleja in Málaga city, Kava and Leña in Marbella, and Ta-Kumi, which has branches in Málaga city and Marbella, which have now each earned a 'sun'.
Diners in the Canary Islands will find a one-sol restaurant in Lanzarote – El Risco, in Caleta de Famara, Teguise – two in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, El Equilibrista 33 and Poemas by Hermanos Padrón, and three in Tenerife, being Haydée in La Orotava, El Taller de Seve Díaz in Puerto de la Cruz, and Nub, in Costa Adeje.
El Xato restaurant in La Núcia, Alicante province, has earned its first sol, and others in the same region to have done so are in Valencia city (Entrevins, La Sastrería and Toshi) and in Sagunto, just north of Valencia on the coast (Arrels).
Código de Barra restaurant in Cádiz is popular for its ‘Chocolate Royal’ desert (photo: Guía Repsol)
Eating out 'in the sun' in the Balearic Islands is now possible at the newly-decorated Repsol entries of Maymanta, Pecador and Nagai in Santa Eulària, Ibiza, and in Sa Llagosta in Fornells, Menorca.
Murcia city is home to one new 'single-sun' restaurant, AlmaMater, and others in the Murcia Region are Local de Ensayo in Puente Tocinos, Odiseo in Churra, and Pepe Tomás in Torreaguera.
