Restaurante Apicius
C/Eolo 7, 46021 Valencia
https://www.restaurante-apicius.com
One of the loveliest restaurants in Valencia is owned and operated by the husband and wife team of Enrique Medina and Yvonne Arcidiacono.
This is truly innovative food and should receive at least one Michelin star (but we are sort of happy that it has not because it would be too, too busy). Chef Medina’s cuisine focuses on high-quality, seasonal, market products that translates into a union of tradition and innovation in what is, quite simply, an amazing menu offering. Yvonne’s oversight of the front of house is surpassed only by her husband’s cuisine. Seldom does one find such amazing and attentive service.
This is a sampling of a recent menu:
ENCURTIDOS de la Huerta con emulsión de comino
Pickled vegetables from local fields with cumin emulsion
NUESTRO CAPPUCCINO
Our cappuccino
CEBOLLA DULCE escalivada, ajo blanco y negro
Sweet onion with white and black garlic
ESPARRAGÓ BLANCO al natural, yema y mojama
Fresh White asparagus, yolk and tuna ham
BERENJENA y GAMBA BLANCA DE CULLERA
Aubergine and white prawns from Cullera
Nuestro ARROZ de la captura de las barcas
Our seaman’s rice
CEREZAS, CHOCOLATE BLANCO, CREMAET
Cherries with white chocolate, coffee
The pickled vegetables are delightful with onions, turnip, cucumbers and carrots. They all have the crispness of the veggies seeds preserved with a light acidic flavor that is complemented by the cumin emulsion. Cumin can so often just overwhelm a dish but is is the background note and the sparkling of crunchy sunflower seeds really rounds out the amuse bouche.
This is followed by a cappuccino of artichoke that is soft and creamy. Don’t let the smooth surface of this fool you. Lurking underneath are little surprises with each bite — blueberry, gherkin, almonds, pistachios and a little bit of crumbly goat cheese. Sweet, smooth, savory, crunchy and tart — a different flavor with each bite.
The escalivada that follows is plated as little onion cups on a bed of white emulsion and topped with a black garlic cream. If you are not familiar, escalivada is Catalonian (Chef Medina is Catalan) smoked vegetables (usually eggplant, peppers or onion with minced garlic). In this case smoked sweet onions are complemented by the sweet white garlic and umami black garlic.
A few courses in and it is hard to decide which is the favorite. It’s not a competition but what follows just gets better and better. This is partly because the food continues to play on great Spanish cuisine traditions but with one of the most playful spins of any chef cooking today. The seafood dishes that follow do just that…
While the white asparagus dish feels like it is super traditional with fat, soft, poached asparagus (not too salty) but with a confit egg yolk, fresh thinly sliced mushroom caps and little slices of tuna ham. Is it posh ham and eggs? Is it a riff on breakfast? Who cares. It is absolutely sublime.
Equally sublime is the eggplant that is so soft and sweet and topped with three small shrimps and carpaccio with a light saffron cream (almost a foam, well about half way between a foam and a cream — maybe a fream or a croam?).
The final dinner course is a rice dish. Not a paella exactly because it comes out of the kitchen in an urn for table side plating. This is super hot and ladled on top of small filets of white fish and fresh tomato in a way that the hot rice heats and slightly cooks the tomatoes and fish. It has everything that you want in a great Valencian rice dish — perfectly cooked and not gummy rice with each grain distinct and subtle saffron flavor. The perfect twist in a city that is full of amazing paella choices but this one with a stamp all its own.
Six courses in and again, it is hard to decide which one is best. However, that’s the point. A great chef’s menu tells a story and each course segues into the next ideally with a bit of a loping gait that lets you get lost in the meal. This story is one of great Spanish cuisine as only Chef Medina can do.
Chef Medina was born in Zaragoza and began cooking early at 9 years of age. This led to him studying at the Higher School of Catalonia and the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Further training at European restaurants and hotels in Spain and France including the Relais & Chateaux restaurant, located in the Gran Hotel Son Net (5 stars) in Palma de Mallorca and in El Bulli in Seville (Ferran Adrià Restaurant, 2 Michelin Stars) and Valencian group La Sucursal.
While working abroad he met Yvonne who had known from a young that she would pursue a career in hospitality and gastronomy. She completed hospitality training in a hotel in Cologne and then worked in luxury hotels in Germany, Switzerland and Spain Relais & Chateaux, Leading Hotels of the World and Gault Milleu.
The couple met and have been offering exquisite fine dining in Valencia at Apicius since 2007.
The wine list (as with almost all Spanish Cartas de Vinos) offers great choices for amazingly reasonable prices. The local whites are especially good.
Oh, yes, postres. In this case cherries nestled on top of either white or milk chocolate served with a drizzle of cherry syrup alongside orange segments and a coffee cream. Light and refreshing but also true to the bounty of the region’s fruit.
The service is flawless with an easy and approach that is anything but rushed. It just flows. The claim on their Web site “that good service is one that adapts to the client’s expectations.” Is not hyperbole. Her maxim “Give a smile and you will receive a smile” works from the moment you are seated and lingers along with the memory of the amazing meal.