It is still paradoxical that the convent that Queen Isabel II of Bourbon donated to the cloistered Conceptionist Franciscan nuns in 1859 in the municipality of El Pardo (Madrid) has become over time a bustling cooking school. In a modern complex equipped with training classrooms and a student residence whose most striking face is occupied by Moscatel, a restaurant with its own garden whose management is not the responsibility of the students but of hospitality professionals in independent facilities. The entity that acquired it in 2020 has spent three years preparing its facilities.
Punctuation | 6 |
---|---|
Bread | 7 |
Coffee | 7 |
Store | 6 |
Atmosphere | 6 |
Service | 5 |
Kitchen | 6 |
Desserts | 6 |
Toilets | 7 |
At the head of the Moscatel kitchen is Carlos Ruiz, who could hold up as a business card his soft and original Russian salad, second best in Madrid in the competition organized by Acyre in 2023 (Association of Chefs and Pastry Chefs of the Community). In the rest of his menu, with a traditional profile, croquettes, salpicones, pickles, stir-fries, fried foods and salads. Suggestions that precede the trunk of his most relevant specialties: olive flame paellas and grilled meats and fish. Why is there no spoon dish on the menu? Any reason to marginalize legumes in a cooking school?
The fried foods of the appetizer (ham and carabineros croquettes; cod and Idiazabal cheese fritters) pass with more pain than glory; the grilled artichokes with lamb gizzards and orange peel lack grace and have plenty of bitter notes; The seafood salpicón is perfect, and the mushroom stir-fries are irregular: the one with chanterelles and cow tongue mushrooms with squid and baby octopus is pleasant, and the one with boletus with egg yolk is not at all stimulating.
![Tripe from the Moscatel restaurant.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/zc5WEtdKpiI630mXVjgoqksLrbE=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/6MELXG4IV5BUTKOTZLNJQUQDOE.jpeg)
Not to be missed are the tripe, which are particularly tasty. Neither do grilled red meats such as the ribeye or the lower loin, where only the garnishes, the fries and the piquillo peppers, which could very well be improved, detract. And their rice dishes are worth it. They are made in plain sight in rectangular steel trays, according to the model developed in 2008 by the great Alicante chef Kiko Moya from the l'Escaleta restaurant in Cocentaina. Dry rice, of the albufera variety, with loose grains and marked flavors: the seafood and monkfish tail is successful, and the mountain rice with trotters, rabbit, blood sausage and mushrooms is even better. With the desserts, from a homemade range, the slide of the entire menu is maintained. Got the flan and cheesecake, and regrettable their alleged whiskey cake in a glass. Adrián de la Rosa, a great professional, tries to bring order to a noisy room that tends to be too noisy.
![Interior of the Moscatel restaurant, in El Pardo, Madrid. Image provided by the venue.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/3VjGzj4vHU8e5uPGb8JPXs8GynU=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/CMJSKDAPT5GPNLJX4HRUOK4DYY.jpg)
Muscatel
- Address: Avenida de la Guardia, 21, El Pardo (Madrid)
- Telephone: 915 466 041
- Hours: Closed: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights
- Price: Between 50 and 60 euros per person
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