National Geographic Traveller (UK) - Food
DON JUAN IN CASA AURELIO
ICONIC SPANISH RESTAURANT IN ZURICH SINCE 1992
Customers will feel like a Don Juan, or Doña Juana, at Casa Aurelio, where the ambiance changes from business-like in the week to party time — with live Spanish music — on Friday and Saturday evenings. The restaurant may be tucked away on Quartier Langstrasse, yet it’s important to make a reservation, especially on weekends. Customers include politicians, entrepreneurs and millionaires, and everybody is given a warm welcome by owner Juan Carmody, who goes out of his way to ensure every stay at Casa Aurelio is memorable. At Casa Aurelio, everything has a Spanish touch and many of the classic popular dishes are very local, like the Swiss grilled veal chop or the grilled fillet mignon. The extensive wine list spans the very finest vintages from Spain, France and Italy.
creative, independent businesses, from a cafe specialising in cocktail-like coffees to a former mill-turned-multipurpose space, housing a restaurant, brewery, boutique and more. It’s the perfect neighbourhood for Mike, who takes an unusual approach to his craft.
“One of the things that got me interested in chocolate was fermentation,” he says as we walk around his workshop, which is filled with microscopes, machinery and things in jars. He offers me a taste of some cacao juice that’s had cocoa beans fermenting in it; the process is what gives the chocolate much of its flavour. It’s sour, with a long, bready finish.
We walk through a humid room where Mike is growing cacao trees, pineapple plants and vanilla, because, he says, they like a similar climate. Later, he breezily mentions he’s gene sequencing cacao.
Mike works with a handful of origins at a time. “All new origins go through multiple roasts, multiple batches, multiple tastings. I’m working with a new one from Thailand and it’s super acidic,” he says as we approach the roasting machine (a chicken rotisserie oven he adapted, as it’s gentle on the beans). The roast can control that acidity, he tells me, a toasty, tangy scent wafting over us.
“Our chocolate is just two ingredients: cocoa and organic sugar from Brazil,” Mike says, proffering a couple of plain bars. The Madagascar is relatively sweet, while the Dominican Republic is more malty. But it’s the filled chocolates that really show off Mike’s Wonka-esque tendencies.
“We try to do a small number of interesting flavours,” he says, gesturing to a glass cabinet full of glossy, colourfully hand-painted halfspheres. He offers me an ‘old fashioned’, a play on the classic cocktail, filled with bourbon that’s been distilled enough to remove the alcohol entirely. Inside, the sweet, thick caramel tastes salty, smoky and slightly burnt. I try other confections filled with cardamom and black pepper caramel, and togarashi, a Japanese spice mix.
“I try to bring out the sweet and savoury. If I’m eating carnitas, or something, I’ll think about the component flavours.” And with that, Mike hands me a cacao juice and cinnamon jelly sweet for the road. Another experiment that’s paid off. twentyfourblackbirds.com
THE LOCAL TIPPLES URBAN WINE TRAIL
“Santa Barbara does one thing really well, and that’s eat. But we also do another thing, and that’s drink.” Tara’s words are ringing in my ears as I head off on the Santa Barbara Urban Wine Trail, a collection of 30 wineries that have banded together to promote locally produced tipples.
Thanks to the microclimate around the Santa Ynez Mountains, Santa Barbara borders some of California’s best wine country. It’s the only range in North America to run east to west, rather than north to south, its unique geography allowing a sea breeze to blow from the Pacific through the fertile valleys.
A wide range of grapes thrive in this area, from pinot noir and chardonnay to syrah and grenache — although merlot is a touchy subject. The 2004 film Sideways, set nearby, caused what became known as the ‘merlot slump’, after the main character railed against the grape. “It was so bad, merlot farmers had to pull their vines up because they were making zero money,” Tara says. Some, however, continued to produce it, or returned to the grape after the film’s effect wore off.
Wine Trail map in hand, I set off, starting in the Funk Zone, at Pali Wine Company. Although this unassuming grey building
Previous pages, clockwise from top left: Sunrise on the seafront; Tyger Tyger; street art in the Funk Zone; pork khao soi attyger Tyger
looks more like an estate agent’s office than a winery, round the side is a more promising view: a terrace draped with lights that sometimes hosts live bands. Inside are wines on tap; Pali produces pinot noir and chardonnay from grapes grown in vineyards along the West Coast, including its own plot in Lompoc, an hour north of Santa Barbara. I order a 2018 chardonnay and sip it in the afternoon sun, its light oakiness a world away from the chardonnays that have given the grape a bad name on our side of the Atlantic.
From here, it’s on to Riverbench, a leatherand-marble space specialising in sparkling wines. I wind my way between dressed-up couples on dates to sit at the bar, where I’m poured a few tasters. “I get a fruit-forward vibe here, maybe pink grapefruit or sour cherry,” the bartender says of the 2016 pinot noir brut rose. She’s right; it’s fruity, but still acidic enough to have a clean finish. Next,
I sip the 2015 blanc de noir (earthy, with a mineral texture).
It’s dark by the time I arrive at Kunin
Wines, a shack-like bar that looks like it’s been transplanted from the bayous of Louisiana to this spot, two blocks from busy State Street. I open the door and the drinkers packed inside the tiny bar turn to see who’s joined them. I pull up a stool and chat to Duncan, the barman, who — despite his American accent — turns out to be a fellow Brit, and a former music journalist.
He puts together a tasting flight, starting with a 2016 viognier he promises will taste like “peach and pear on the palate”. He’s not wrong; it’s slightly sweet and perfect for a warm night like this. I try Special K, a fruity, full-bodied red made using several grapes, including two I’ve never tried before: mourvedre and counoise.
As I sip, locals pop in to say hello to Duncan and ask where I’m from and what I’m doing here. There’s a distinctly neighbourhood feel, and, a few glasses in, I don’t want to leave. But I have to — this being Santa Barbara, it’s time to eat again. urbanwinetrailsb.com