14 years ago now, one day I ran into a friend on the street, a cook who had worked in a well-known restaurant in Santiago de Compostela and whom I had lost track of for some time.
That day he showed me the plans for his new project, a restaurant that would occupy a few adjoining stalls in the city's food market, barely 30 square meters between the kitchen and the living room. I was happy for him, but I confess that I didn't see much of a future for the format.
The cook was Marcos Cerqueiro and the place, which was going to open with a partner, Iago Pazos, would be called Abastos 2.0... 13 years after its opening it is still a reference restaurant in the city, a format that was ahead of its time . It is fair to admit it when one is wrong.
So much so, that the restaurant opened a second space —Abastos Ghalpón— a few meters from the current one and developed a whole series of proposals, such as the now-defunct Barra Atlántica, in Madrid, or the more recent A Sede, in Compostela. Of all these initiatives, however, there is one that found its own way a long time ago and that currently has its own distinct personality: Loxe Mareiro.
A loxe, in Galician, is a warehouse, one of those old shops where you could buy anything. In coastal areas it can also be one of those booths in which the sailors kept their tools. Mareiro, for his part, refers to the maritime condition of something, to its relationship with the sea and, in this case, with the estuary.
That is what Cerqueiro and Pazos found on the seashore, which at high tide is just over two meters from the building, an old customs surveillance space in Carril (Vilagarcía, Pontevedra), a town in the heart of the Ría de Arousa, just over 45 minutes from Santiago and barely half an hour from Pontevedra; a place with an unquestionable character that in recent years had been operating as an eclectic restaurant.
And that is what in 2013, at that time with Iván Domínguez as chef, they opened as a branch that, little by little, has found its own unique path. Loxe is today part of the Abastos family, but it has developed a distinct personality that allows it to develop in parallel, without looking permanently towards the mother house.
After this decade, and with Iago Pazos at the helm, the Loxe has just started the season. The premises are open from the end of spring to autumn, while the rest of the year it can be rented out for private services. This gives the team time to reflect, to evaluate the past campaign and to plan the next one in a process of constant redefinition that is very difficult to achieve if the rhythms were different.
The location is enviable, with the restaurant facing the estuary and oriented directly to the sunset with the only limits imposed by the mass of Serra do Barbanza and the profile of the island of Cortegada, which is part of the Park. National of the Atlantic Islands.
Pazos and his team know this, and that is why they plan each table as something itinerant. When reserving, in fact, what is reserved are two tables: one outside, for appetizers and after-dinner, and another inside the building for the central sequence.
Upon arrival, the team explains, although the products will be in charge of underlining it throughout the entire journey, that what they propose is an experience in a local key, of “metro zero”, in the words of Iago Pazos; a menu that draws exclusively from the estuary, from what can be seen: the fish come from the Ribeira fish market, one of the most important inshore fishing markets in Spain, a few kilometers in a straight line, on the other shore . The bivalves come from the rafts that can be seen in the water, perhaps a couple of kilometers from the restaurant, and from the town's sandbanks. If Carril is known for something, it is for its clams.
They receive the bread from a workshop in Santiago and another from the town, as well as a part of the desserts. And the vegetables are from the orchards of Corón, in the interior of the O Salnés region, from where they travel just over ten minutes to the restaurant.
The wines, for their part, could be limited to the production of Rías Baixas, on whose land the building is located. Or perhaps add those of the IGP Terras do Barbanza, on the opposite bank. However, at the Loxe they have also defined their own path in this, creating the concept of Beach Wines, elaborations with Atlantic connotations that they select in Galicia, but also in other areas of the western peninsular coast and northern Europe.
For the rest, the menu is articulated around four sequences, which the client can expand, something highly recommended, to five. Within each one of them is played, fleeing from the topic of the long and narrow menu, with the concept of a mesa chea —a full table— emulating the way of serving the rations in the center in traditional taverns and in festive celebrations in which everything was shared.
In this way, while the wines are being chosen, the morsels that make up the molluscada begin to arrive at the table outside, the first sequence: fine clam from Carril opened with a knife, oyster from A Illa de Arousa, carneiro —spits— from the estuary seasoned with apple; cockles from the banks of the mouth of the river Ulla, served steamed and grilled razor clams from A Corna beach. All collected in places that can be seen from the table and accompanied by a fresh laurel water, a nod to neighboring Cortegada where, barely 300 meters from the restaurant, the largest laurel forest in Europe is preserved.
Once inside, either in the room with views of the estuary or at the large kitchen table, the next three sequences are articulated around a piece of fish of the day -sargo on this occasion- that is selected according to the table size.
Peixes nús, naked fish, offers a more essential vision of the product. The sargo belly is marinated in fermented cherry water and accompanied, following the concept of a full table, with a whole series of snacks: an open version of the corn pie, traditional in the region, red mullet with a touch of fennel; a mussel from the Cabo de Cruz rafts in homemade marinade, “the horse mackerel that wanted to be ham”, cured and seasoned with tomato; the first xoubas — sardines — of the season, caught by the xeito fleet, a fishing gear, from Rianxo, paired with canned sardines from Los Peperetes, a port-based cannery. Bread, oil, butter. The table overflows.
The following sequence presents the fried sea bream loin, in this case in a vodka tempura accompanied by a chimichurri and covered by the garden of O Salnés: spring onion from Vilagarcía served with a hollandaise, two heads of lettuce —with smooth and curly leaves — with a fermented honey dressing, a tender pak choi —When does a vegetable stop being foreign to become local?— grilled and a seaweed salad. Mariñeiras cookies, the old ship's bread, to accompany.
So far we have consumed half of the bream, only one side. The other is prepared in the oven, in the traditional way, and is served with the potatoes that have been roasting in their juices and a Bilbaina. The head, full of delicate textures, is proposed separately, for those who want to rummage through it. They are accompanied by clams a la marinera, one of the festive dishes par excellence in the area, and a butter bread, traditional from the region, with which they invite you to dip.
I return to the terrace to have an osmotized apple with a touch of citrus as a pre-dessert, and then a series of traditional sweet bites. The lemon tartlet and the financier are made in the restaurant, while the cream-filled straw and the donut are bought, as in the pilgrimages, from the town bakery. The table is at your disposal until mid-afternoon so that, if you want, you can extend the after-dinner meal without rushing. Or why, if you have opted for the dinner service, enjoy the sunset as part of the experience.
Everything fits into the proposal of the Loxe which, after a decade of experience, is going through a moment of complete maturity. His is a radically local and product cuisine in which nothing is out of place; a proposal that makes sense only here, with the saltpeter reaching the table with the breeze and the estuary slipping through the window.
Seasonal cuisine that becomes a tribute to the place, to the seafaring culture of the area and to their ways of sitting at the table and celebrating; a celebration of the humble of the traditional way of eating and drinking in the estuaries. An almost Cunqueirian praise of the tavern, in a contemporary key in this case. An exercise in Galician cooking that makes clichés its own and reformulates them in ways that are unlike any other; a place to immerse yourself in the estuary without getting up from the table.
