A Visit to Cordoba

Saturday, June 29th , 2024

 

Cordoba is a city with a long history including Roman remains and a very impressive historic quarter. The Grand Mosque (pictured) and the Alcazar are beautiful buildings and the city is quite walkable, though even in early June it was already 34C in the heat of the afternoon. 

Noor was recently promoted to three Michelin stars. Its chef has carried out a lot of research into the history of the cuisine of the area, with extensive Arabic influences, though his dishes are very modern. The plating was pretty and the dishes were certainly original, though for me there was a tendency to underseason and to make any spicing almost invisible. It was pleasant enough food, but the very long meal, lasting over four hours, felt rather overworked. There was a fairly priced wine list at least.

Regadera was a much simpler restaurant but in some ways I enjoyed it at least as much, and it was a small fraction of the price of Noor. It offered quite simple dishes like tuna tartare, but based on very good ingredients. Tender beef cheeks were the best dish, and these were genuinely excellent.