On my way up to Oviedo (Asturias) with a couple of friends from the US, I wanted to stop in one of our favourite historical cities within one hour of Madrid (Toledo, Alcala de Henares, Segovia, Avila) for lunch and enjoy some nice food and views. At the end I decided to stop in Avlila and I did look for restaurant choosing at the end to stop at El Almacen
El Almacen
Carretera Salamanca 6
05002 Avila
920 211 026
To start with the location is great, just at in front of the Muralla de Avila (the medieval wall from the XIII century), right after the “Cuatro Postes” (Four postes) monument in the old cross roads in Avila and the roads to Salamanca and the Barco de Avila (N110 Avila – Toledo)
The restaurant just went under a large renovation recently and the result is excellent. One of the sides of the main room the restaurant is all windows which allows you to eat while enjoying the amazing view of the walls and the latest addition of the new festivals building of Avila
The style of the room is modern and tries to avoid a bit the typical castillian meson style while still providing you with a very cozy and although the entire restaurant does allow smoking (which is usually a NO NO for us) at least the distance between the tables is very large and allows you to enjoy your meal with no thinking of the smoke bothering you. However I have read that as they also allow to smoke cigars sometimes you may not be able to really enjoy your meal. Being such a nice restaurant and having 2 very different rooms in the restaurant it is difficult to imagine we they have not taken care of this
The menu is large and offer different ways to add modernity to traditional plates. We love the nidos de morcilla (pig blood nests with small rice noodles), see how he plays with the idea of the “morcilla de arroz” but combining the rice outside the morcilla and with a red pepper souce (although I may admit I have read some other blogs and people did not enjoy them as much as we did) to cold soups for the summer (tomato cold soup) and great spoon plates in the winter. Very well presented all of them and ideal both for sharing a couple of them or enjoy one of them yourself
For the main we did focus mostly on the meet and choose different combinations of Solomillos de ternera or Lomos de Cerdo (beef or pork), apart from the typical but always great ways to cook the lamb and small pig that is done so well in Avila and Segovia, like the cordero and the cochinillo. The Solomillo is offered perfectly cook, with great meet quality and very well done sauces as a blue cheese (excellent!!) one or a sauce of uvas y vino blanco (Grapes and white wine). The lomo was done with a suca eof foie and hongos (mushrooms), equally good. If you don´t fancy meat, there is always a choice of at least 5-7 fresh fish plates. We did try the Atun Rojo (Red Tuna fish) and it was really excellent
The selection of desserts is also really good but please note that you have to choose them at the beginning, as some of them take some time to be prepared. While the chocolate fondue was OK, the emborrachado de almendra (Almond Drunk cake), was an amazing way to combine almost paste (marzapan style more or less) with cold and hot. Really superb
We did choose the wine house, price at 10 Eur. Artazuri, 2005 Navarra. Great wine, with the right level of complexity, smooth, a bit of red berries and apple, and it did complement the excellent meal (both meat and tuna). Overall the wine menu was very good and well priced
For a price of 40-50 eur each, I believe it is really a great culinary experience that combines with the amazing s
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