Our summer special features great Spanish recipes and the 50 best summer wines
Welcome to our Summer Food Special. We have recipes galore for you, some dazzling summer wines and a little taste of Spain. I have long been an admirer of Nieves Barragán Mohacho. While others have come and gone, Nieves has, since 2003, been cooking some of the best Spanish food in the country. From clam soups and chorizo stews to pork belly and boiled octopus, she has been quietly at the forefront of the revolution in Spanish cooking in this country. On a personal level I have much to thank her for. Seeing my choice of lunch at her early restaurant Fino, in Fitzrovia, several years ago (clam soup, pork belly), Nieves seemed puzzled – “But you haven’t got any octopus!” – and immediately brought a plump, sweet tentacle to my table. Having fought and lost with one or two cephalopods previously I had failed to realise the magic that can happen to them in the hands of the right cook.
Rachel Cooke talks to Nieves about what life holds for her post-Barrafina, the tall-stool-and-counter restaurants she has been so much a part of for a decade. Her first solo restaurant opens later this year. And we have recipes from her new book, too.
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