Enrique Calvillo Restaurant

The place

The restaurant of the Enrique Calvillo rural hotel has been in El Bosque since 1975, on Avenida de la Diputación, next to the Majaceite river. It is a family-run house that presents itself as cooking of the Cádiz sierra: old recipes mixed with the occasional new creation, with local, seasonal produce and a menu made each day from whatever is fresh.

The dining room is rustic, with beams, wrought-iron lamps and a fireplace, and in all it has three rooms and two terraces, one of them covered with awnings and open to the hills. It serves breakfasts, tapas and main dishes, so it suits a long lunch as well as a bite on the way back from a walk.

What to order

The menu is published with prices on its website. Among the products of the sierra, the local queso emborrao (€17), Iberian ham from the house's own pigs (€23) and the mountain soups stand out, such as the sopa de la olla with bread, chorizo, ham and poached egg (€8) or the monastery soup (€9). There are scrambled eggs with wild asparagus or with tagarninas and ham (€13), two wild greens typical of this sierra.

Among meats, oxtail (€20), low-temperature oven-roasted leg of lamb (€26), Retinta beef tenderloin (€23) or Retinta rib steak by weight. From the river, trout with ham (€15), the dish you expect in El Bosque. For dessert, several options with Payoyo cheese: cheesecake, or the Payoyo ingot with quince paste, walnuts and ice cream (€8).

The separate tapas menu has portions of about €6 to €8 such as marinated dogfish, garlic chicken, meat in sauce or homemade stew croquettes, as well as grilled meats. Bread and service are charged separately, at a little over €1 per person.

When to go and how to book

It is the natural lunch after the Majaceite river trail, which starts very close to the hotel, or before heading up towards Benamahoma and Grazalema on the A-372. The website does not publish opening hours or a closing day: book by phone, on 956 71 61 05, or write to [email protected], especially at weekends.