Hear the word “Rioja” and the first thing that comes to mind is wine — bold, robust, red. But there’s another side to : family-run restaurants in quiet villages, atop craggy mountains or surrounded by farmland. Here, you’ll find tasty, rustic dishes and inexpensive, good wine.
It’s served by people who treat diners like out-of-town family friends who just happened to pop in for a three-hour lunch. Driving there is half the fun, as roads snake through rolling, vineyard-clad hills and alongside verdant mountains. La Cueva del Chato, a family-run restaurant, serves traditional Spanish food in a converted tractor shed, in the village of Canillas de Rio Tuerto.
Located in the tiny village of Canillas de Río Tuerto (population 42), about 25 miles west of Logroño, the capital of La Rioja, is run by César Torrecilla and his wife, María Isabel Hermosilla, who works the front of the room. In Spanish, “chato” refers to someone with a flat nose and the chato in question here is chef Torrecilla, who doesn’t have a particularly flat nose. “That was my father,” he said.
“I’m el chatito,” he added, using the diminutive. The menu is filled with rustic goodness, including white asparagus smothered in a mushroom sauce; a stew of caparrónes (a local red bean) studded with slices of morcilla (blood sausage), pork belly and chorizo; foie gras salad, essentially a heap of rich and delicious foie gras; and the menu’s tour de force, an enormous bone-in chuleto�.