Jorge Guitián Castromil is a food writer and historian in Santiago de Compostela. In 2004 he began writing one of the oldest gastronomy blogs in Spain and in 2005 he began collaborating with local television. Since then, he has had the opportunity to collaborate with Ferran Adrià and the El Bulli team in the design of an exhibition.
He currently writes for the newspaper La Vanguardia as well as for Guía Repsol, CN Traveler or Vinte among others, and dedicates part of his work to designing gastronomic tourism strategies for cities, regions and tourist destinations.
Please introduce yourself to our members.
I was born and raised in Galicia, in the northwest of Spain, and although my training was in cultural heritage management, I have been writing about gastronomy for 20 years.
Tell us about your current project.
I currently work writing for Spanish media such as La Vanguardia, which is the main newspaper in Catalonia and one of the most influential in Spain, for CN Traveler, Guía Repsol, Revista Pan, Vinte, etc. At the same time, I work on developing tourism strategies for destinations and cities focusing on gastronomy.
Tell us about the restaurant scene in Santiago de Compostela.
I live in Santiago de Compostela, a small city in the Northwest with barely 100,000 inhabitants. Still, given that it is the end of the Camino de Santiago, hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world visit it every year, making it a place with a broader gastronomic scene than you could imagine considering its size.
In addition, Santiago is the capital of Galicia and the headquarters of the most important university in the Northwest. All of this makes it a small town with a vibrant food and restaurant scene.
What are your three favorite restaurants in Santiago de Compostela and why?
1. My favorite restaurant in the city is surely A Tafona, a Michelin starred restaurant where Lucía Freitas offers a personal interpretation of the flavors of Galician cuisine.
2. Simpar restaurant, in the center of the historic city, is without a doubt another of my favorites.
3. As a third option I choose a simpler restaurant: O Ferro. It is a small restaurant, in a neighborhood on the southern side of the city. They work with top quality ingredients giving the dishes an excellent quality-price ratio. I still remember vividly a Verdina bean stew with spider crab they served us some months ago.
What’s a new restaurant or hidden gem in Santiago de Compostela that you think is doing great things?
Pampín Bar is starting to be a well-known restaurant for locals and some visitors, but somehow it remains a hidden gem. The chef and owner, Alén Tarrío, worked in fine dining restaurants before returning to the city to run his own tavern, a tribute to the city's old traditional cuisine, with a casual atmosphere but a great level of cooking.
What’s your favorite kind of restaurant and why?
I enjoy all types of restaurants, as long as their cuisine is interesting.
However, more and more I value simple restaurants, capable of showing their personality without having to complicate things too much.
I prefer a short and well-selected wine list to an endless one. Likewise, I prefer a short menu of dishes based on local products, with flavors that make sense in the place where the restaurant is located, rather than a fine dining experience with no connection to the city or the region.
What are your three favorite food cities and your favorite restaurants in those cities?
Cadiz, without a doubt. I think it still is a great unknown for those who come from outside the country, but it is one of the most interesting cities in Spain in terms of gastronomy. From old bars to modern tapas bars; fried fish stalls, fish and seafood restaurants and creative cuisine. It is a small city, but with an endless gastronomic scene.
I really enjoy Lisbon, a city with the gastronomic scene of a big capital, but at the same time with a simple and welcoming atmosphere. There is always something new and interesting. In addition, it has a historical connection with Africa, with parts of India and with Brazil that makes it even more interesting.
Finally, I would mention Catania in Sicily. It is another city not very well known in gastronomic terms, but with an immense tradition and an scene that goes from the simplest bakery or from its grilled meat places to fine dining restaurants (something that is even more remarkable if we take into account its surroundings, a region with a gastronomy that is simply amazing). And it also has Chiosco Giammona and its weird but tasty Sale-Limone-Seltz drink.
What is your favorite dish and where is your favorite restaurant to have it?
It is always difficult to choose just one dish. If you ask me in two days I would probably choose another, but today I am going to highlight the Rollo de Bonito, a specialty of the northern coast of Spain, especially Asturias.
It is something similar to a meat loaf, but cooked with bonito, some ham, olives, sometimes sherry wine in the sauce... It is traditional and intriguing at the same time, tasty and delicate, complex, full of nuances.
Two places that cook it especially well are Nito restaurant, in Viveiro, and Casa Belarmino restaurant, in Asturias. The first offers a more refined version, a fine dining adaptation, while the second offers a more traditional version. They are both incredible.
Who is an up-and-coming chef you are keeping an eye on?
Pedrito Sánchez, from Bagá restaurant, in Jaén.
His work is unique. He is a chef with a special talent for finding the balance between ingredients, for imagining subtle and elegant combinations. His work is impossible to define with adjectives that fit well with what he does. You have to go to Jaén to see it.
Nobody knows how far Pedrito can go, but I have the feeling that we are just seeing the beginning of something brilliant.
Who is a food expert whose restaurant recommendations you’d like to see?
Luckily there are many. Someone who seems especially reliable to me for almost 20 years is Philippe Regol. He writes a blog and speaks on the radio from Barcelona. He is someone whose recommendations and opinions I always trust.
I was also a fan of Stefano Bonilli, who unfortunately passed away a few years ago. He was part of the history of modern food criticism in Italy and Europe. He was a good friend who gave me very valuable advice about this profession.
