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Chef Rafa Zafra is living a great professional moment. If just two weeks ago he won the Golden T of Tapas Magazine of the Balearic Islands with his restaurant Casa Jondal in Ibiza, now the Sevillian continues his unstoppable expansion in Spain with the opening of the Rural restaurant, his new gastronomic project in Madrid. It is a restaurant dedicated to meat and local products. On this occasion, Rural will move away from the sea, a concept that is closely linked to many of his restaurants.
For this opening, Zafra also has the support of entrepreneurs Anna Gotanegra, Ricardo Acquista, Alberto Pacheco and Gema Castellvi. Located at Marqués de Cubas 8, it shares a street with another restaurant that Rafa owns in Madrid, Estimar. According to the team of the new restaurant, Rural stands out for its respect for the raw material, betting on a noble cuisine and becoming a unique enclave to enjoy its proposal of meat and local products. All through simple recipes, but with sophisticated airs.
In Rural, Zafra and his team have managed to create “their own language based on the different types of meat and local products, which are enhanced through different techniques, simple and honest, to present the product in its maximum splendor”. While he shares with Estimar “that genuinely enjoyable philosophy, which turns each dish into a celebration of the product and haute cuisine, without ties or impositions”, emphasizes the Sevillian.
A menu full of gastronomic emblems
Rural’s kitchen is led by chefs Alberto Pacheco and Willem Bonneu, who will act as head chef. In addition, the menu features gastronomic emblems, such as the cep carpaccio in homage to elBulli, the lamb skewer in homage to Alhucemas or the suckling pig baked in the Castilian oven in the style of the Sandoval brothers.
Regarding the wine list, the maitre d’ Juanma Galán has designed a proposal with more than 350 references that complement the restaurant’s gastronomic menu and which includes fortified, sparkling, white and rosé wines, but where special attention is paid to Spanish reds, divided into two sections: ‘De La Tierra’ with local wines, of limited production and made with native varieties; and ‘Clásicos de España’, where the labels of the most emblematic wineries of the different Denominations of Origin are featured.
This new opening of Rural adds to the other restaurants currently owned by Rafa Zafra: Estimar, with locations in Barcelona and Madrid; the Casa Jondal beach bar in Ibiza (T de Oro de Tapas Magazine of the Balearic Islands in 2023); the Amar restaurant in the Palace Hotel in Barcelona; Mareantes in Seville; and the joint project of Mar Mía in Madrid, with Carlos Bosch (Manero) and Luis Rodríguez (Casa Elías).