The fire’s stillburning at Botin
IAN JONES heads to Madrid in Spain and the oldest restaurant in the world, as verified by The Guinness Book of World Records, having first opened its doors in 1725
Some 73 years before Thomas Rule opened the famous Rules restaurant in London and 103 years before the first gas cooker was marketed, a relation of renowned French cook Jean Botín established a restaurant in the heart of the Spanish capital.
Cooking then as now in a wood-fired oven, Botín has been going ever since, with the current custodian of Botín, José González, telling me even during the pandemic and lockdown a resident chef and stoker was onsite to keep the fire burning, ensuring that the ancient lining of the oven didn’t cool below 70°C and crack.
The Botín restaurant is timber-framed over four floors and even on a Monday, the day of my visit, they expected to cook and serve 60 suckling pigs, a figure that rises to around 86 on the weekend.
When the kitchen team arrives around 7am in the morning, the oven has cooled overnight to just under 80°C. The fires are stoked using Spanish oak to achieve a core temperature of 200°C. While the ornate tiled aperture of the oven is relatively small, it extends to around three metres inside, allowing up to 15 of the suckling pigs to be cooked at once.
The pork is cooked for about two and a half hours, then left to rest. Each one is just 4.5kg in weight.
“Any more and we send them back,” says José González, the third generation of the González family to run Botín. One suckling pig will feed six diners; it’s far and away the most popular choice on the menu, closely followed by the lamb, which is also wood-fired.
The restaurant service is as charming as it is efficient, as I choose a Spanish rosé Rioja to wash down the suckling pig. As a pig farmer for 10 years, I have eaten plenty of pork, but this was my first suckling pig and the difference is quite striking.
The skin cracks beautifully, almost like a biscuit; the pork is less fatty, but the flavour is delicate, infused with wood smoke, with the meat falling away from the bone once the crackling is removed.
“The pigs come from two regions in Spain: Avila and Segovia; these are the best producers in Spain. The oak is also important. It’s Spanish and our oak wood has less humidity and produces greater heat and flavour,” says González (below).
I am intrigued by the menu pointing out that Botín has a complaint book – a legacy of General Franco apparently and every business in Spain must have one. No complaints from me – just the need for a siesta after a wonderful meal in the oldest restaurant on earth.