Casa José

The kitchen garden on the plate

Casa José is a family house on Calle Abastos, in the centre of Aranjuez, run by chef Fernando del Cerro. It has two spaces. Downstairs is the Atelier, informal, with an open kitchen behind the bar and a menu that the house describes as spontaneous and open to the world without losing its Mediterranean base. Upstairs, the restaurant, with a dining room of wooden beams.

The cooking starts from the Aranjuez kitchen gardens and the Tagus. The house's idea is that, with your eyes closed, the dish should smell of worked earth, and that when you open them you see the colours of the plain in it. To explain this, the menu measures each recipe in percentages of vegetable and animal produce.

What to order

The six-course menu costs €60 including VAT and can be chosen in three versions: 100% vegetable, 60% vegetable and 40% animal, or 40% vegetable and 60% animal. The bread service is charged separately (€3.85).

The menu, which changes with the season, is organised in the same way. In the 100% green block, when consulted, there was radish on quince purée and Mahón cheese (€14.20), roast aubergine with garlic yoghurt cream and pine nuts (€16.70), Jerusalem artichoke with tree-tomato ají and green mole (€19) or gnocchi in black sauce (€16). In the game and mushrooms block, quail and saffron milk caps in tomato escabeche (€18.50) or fresh pochas beans with pigeon (€19.50). In the protein dishes, hake in rose water on macadamia cream (€26), barbecued beef brisket (€27) or old-style roast suckling lamb ribs (€28.50). For dessert, greengage plum tarte tatin with wild fennel ice cream (€7.50).

These are prices from the menu published on its website and may change with the season.

When to go

Tuesday to Saturday, lunch from 13:30 to 16:30 and dinner from 20:30 to 23:30; on Sunday, lunch only. Closed on Monday. It has a terrace, where pets are admitted. Book by phone, on 91 891 14 88 or 91 892 02 04, or by email at [email protected].

Nearby

It is a walk from the Royal Palace and the Island Garden, so it fits well after the morning visit. If you stay the night, the Hotel El Cocherón de 1919 is in the same historic centre. If you arrive by train, the Cercanías C-3 stops at Aranjuez station.