A night car joins the gastronomic offer of Canfranc with dinners like on the 'Orient Express'
He chef Eduardo Salanova (Canfranc, 1985) and the cook Loic Thoraval (Versailles, France, 1998) are the creators of the menus that have been offered since last Thursday on the gastronomic night trips, with capacity for 30 people, in the wagon '1928' of the 'Canfranc Express' train'reliving the historical dinners of the journeys of Canfranc to Parisas occurred between 1928 and 1970.
“It is a way to complete the offer that the Royal Hideaway Hotel (along with the menus offered in the hotel dining room and in the Michelin star car)”, says Eduardo Salanova from Canfranque. Together with Loic, they try to ensure that clients who arrive at the hotel and want to discover the gastronomic offer relive a trip from Canfranc Station, with the Aragonese product, until reaching Paris in the 1920s. They want these dinners offered from Wednesday to Saturday on the old trains that come from the Art Deco era to make that journey from the Aragonese Pyrenees to the capital of France.
If the wagon 'Canfranc Express' opened on July 20, 1923 for Michelin star midday meals for between 8 and 10 guests, the past April 11, 2024 they started the wagon '1928' where 30 people can come for dinner. Since its premiere last Thursday, they are already filling it up.
In reality, the Barceló group intends to offer three different points to draw the pull of gastronomy for its clients. “In it international hotel we give a kitchen more informal and Aragonese, both for clients and for those who come from outside. He 'Canfranc Express' is a more creative and avant-garde Aragonese cuisine, in which we try to rescue the very old recipe book that has been lost and we want the client to know the history of the area, even before the station was built. and in the wagon '1928', we have united our Aragonese and French cuisinesmine and Loic's,” says Eduardo Salanova.
For the French chef, trained among great restaurants in Versailles, Paris and Marseille, he summarizes that “the international (hotel) honors a cuisine with its name; Canfranc Express is Aragonese with a French touch; and '1928' is French cuisine with Aragonese touches.” This is what he told it from the carriage, together with chef Salanova, in a video that facilitates the tour guide Georges García.
From sturgeon to duck foie with poncho
Loic Thoraval gives the example of the cold dish offered at the 'Canfranc Express' with a sturgeon that comes from El Grado and they work it whole, serving it smoked mixed with a French oyster sauce mixed with a Baeri caviar and they have lightened it with the mussel sauce. While the man from Canfranque points out another one from '1928' where “just the opposite” happens because they cook a duck foie inside the Aragonese ponchowhich is “the spiced mulled wine from the Pyrenees that is offered in winter for families”, and then they compact it to make “a very French terrine” through this Aragonese recipe.
They are clear that the Royal Hideaway Hotel must offer various cuisine scenarios, in addition to the Pyrenean excursions. “There are international clients (French, German, British or Dutchenumerate) like this like Aragonese and Spanish. That's why we like you to try this type of gastronomic offerings, such as the cocktail bar (located in the northern area) or the Art Deco, the hotel's snack bar that has many tapas,” Eduardo Salanova lists. “The 'Canfranc Express' is a three-hour menu offer and how to get around the station, while the '1928' is a night car in the style of the 'Orient Express' with shorter tasting menus because the meals are lighter. We are going from Wednesday to Saturday and it is already being a success since we are almost complete. We are very happy”.
In the equipment of the two carriages they have six cooks and a room team of five people, who are with Ana Acin, but there are already 52 workers in the 104-room hotel. In addition, they recognize that they have many internal clients, but also external clients who do not sleep there but come for lunches and (now) dinners.
“This allows us to expand the teams and have teammates from different parts of the world (there are Latin Americans, French, Spanish…) to create a very interesting team,” says the Canfranquese, who has been training outside of Canfranc for 21 years (in last place in the Venta del Sotón de Esquedas, Huesca) and with his experience he returns to his town “to be a reference in Aragon with this gastronomy.”
“For me Canfranc, my birthplace, is the most wonderful place in the world, but I am not very objective“, acknowledges Eduardo Salanova. “Inside the hotel you see a French part, which you can compare in another station there, and the Spanish touches too. About the evolution since it was inaugurated (January 27, 2023) is that it is constantly changing. The menus even remember what was eaten at the inauguration (July 18, 1928).) or do you know the heritage it has to follow it in the future.”
Canfranc-Urdos and Grand Voyage to Paris Menus
The two menus offered in the newly opened car are the Canfranc-Urdos (what does it cost 85 euroswith first-second and dessert), which is shorter and relates to the two nearby stations between the two towns of Spain and France, and the Grand Voyage to Paris (125 euros, with eight dishes and several of them pay tribute to what was served on the day of the international line's premiere).
“In it Grand Voyage We tell a little about what the inauguration was like and its evolution,” details the Canfranquez. “We have paid tribute to dishes such as Orloff beef (a French meat dish very popular among 19th century European royalty) or Bidasoa salmon which was served with tartar sauce because we have documentation of the dishes from then (the premiere in 1928) and with our interpretation from now, between an Aragonese and a Frenchman,” he specifies.
As a visitor, chef Loic describes that going up from Jaca to Canfranc, in the heart of the Aragonese Pyrenees, offers them “a unique landscape” because they are “in the middle of the mountains” and “just for that reason, getting here is great.” “This century-old heritage can also be seen from a historical point of view,” says the Frenchman, who is very dedicated to the cause. “In the gastronomic part we try to do the best, from having a coffee to the meals in the carriagesfor the people who work here, and for the architects and those who rebuilt this site.”
The French chef Loic Thoraval has been working between restaurants in France and Spain for ten years, but remembers that he wanted to be a chef since he was a child. He did an internship for two years at the well-known Trianon Palace of Versaillesin the restaurant Gordon Ramsaycame to form one with a Michelin star in Parisand then went down to Marseilleswhere he was in several and marked the Dimitri restaurant, which had three stars. He came to others in Spain, met Eduardo Salanova and brought him to Canfranc, where he “is doing very well.”
“We want the client to know and enjoy something as magical as Canfranc and its gastronomy. We still marvel when they start the Canfranc Express experience and learn the whole story behind it or some get excited about the Aragonese borage,” highlights the Canfranque chef. “We have a responsibility to value the recipes of the Pyrenees and all of Aragon. That mission is very nice. The effort of Barceló group and the Government of Aragon, which made it possible to return to my town in 2023, because I did not plan to cook in the place where I was born and raised. I can only say thank you and feel responsible for teaching something as magical as Canfranc.”
Russell age 28 years Studying in world cooking I have a degree in England
Studying in world cooking I have a degree in England
