250 mi
250 kmMadridBarcelonaALGERIASPAIN
ASTURIASMOROCCOPORTUGALATLANTIC FRANCE
OCEANMedit.^ S
ea
spend their entire childhoods without ever seeing the water.
The Manzano family opened Casa Marcial in the middle of
the last century as a general store, selling olive oil, cider, cattle
feed, even clothing. In 1993, 22-year-old Nacho Manzano, the
son of the owners, returned from the coast to start a restaurant.
Gastronomes such as the Antelos love Casa Marcial, which has
been awarded two Michelin stars. So do locals, who don’t dress
up to eat there. But nobody more admires its modern Asturian
cuisine—fresh, briny seafood such as razor clams, but also the
thick bean stews of the mountain villages so
pure and perfectly rendered—than other chefs.
On this November night, half a dozen chefs
from across Spain have gathered to celebrate the
restaurant’s 25th anniversary. They aren’t just
paying homage; they are actually cooking for
Nacho and about 50 of us diners. We eat plate
after plate of food: more ham, roasted rabbit
from the hills around the restaurant, and the
salty, rubbery sea cucumbers that I’ve only had along the Spanish
coast. By the time I head back over the mountain to my hotel in
seaside Gijón, we’re nearly five hours into tomorrow.
Walking in the drizzle by the seawall where on summer days
surfers congregate, I pass a rowboat filled with predawn fish-
ermen. When I look around at where I am, and remember the
mountain village I just left, José Antelo’s description hits home.
Asturias is like an entire country.
Returning to the region for the first time in years, I’d driven north
from Madrid a few days before. By the time I hit
the A-66 highway, the mesa around me had been
flat and brown for hours. At the northern edge
of the province of León, I entered the Negrón
tunnel—and emerged somewhere else, a land
all its own. The highway curved through a valley
rimmed with tall pines, past bulbous rock forma-
tions atop vertiginous slopes. I saw homes with
picture windows cantilevered over stone-pavedVintage restaurants such as columned El Nogal de San Francisco (left) draw diners to coastal Avilés, known for its fish markets. At right, Gijón resident
Mateo Mori Meana pours prized local sidra—cider—into a glass the Asturian way, a maneuver intended to create froth and open up flavors.
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