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Woodsmoke, snoring and a £30 tin of tuna: Las Conservas Güeyu Mar

On February 21, 2022 by The Plate Licked Clean

Snoring is like stupidity: you don’t know you’re a sufferer until someone points it out.

So depending on your perspective I am either a terrible snorer, as several special friends have been kind enough to remark over the years, or absolutely fantastic at it. I mean world class. Really- a virtuoso. A baleful combination of deviated septum and a couple of subsequent broken noses means I have acquired prodigious skills, hosting nightly masterclasses where my stertorous rumblings have a china-rattling, pet-troubling profundity.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking, ladies. Form a queue. No pushing now: there’s plenty to go round.

‘El ronqueo’

For our purposes, the ‘snore’ is a more rewarding thing: it is the colloquial Spanish for the noise made by the knife as it glides down a tuna’s rib cage and through its spine during the ronqueo, the process which portions the fish into exactly 24 pieces.

It might have its whimsical origins in roncar (‘to snore’) but it all starts with the quality of the catch. Most sought-after are Atlantic Bluefin, known locally as atun rojo (red tuna) for its ruddy flesh.

At the start of Spring each year the fish cross the straits of Gibraltar, moving from Atlantic to Mediterranean in search of warmer water to spawn. They still carry the fat reserves which have kept them warm during the winter, and which will provide energy for the long journey south: so it is now they are at their best, with texture and flavour at their peak.

There, on the Cádiz coast, a maze of nets waits, the way it has done for centuries at this time of year. This Almadraba trap-fishing method funnels the tuna through the labyrinth until they are trapped in a central area, encircled by a cordon of boats. Then the net is raised and the choicest fish are selected. The method is rooted in Phoenician traditions and brought to Spain over 3,000 years ago. (Sicilians call their version ‘mattanza’, a close linguistic cousin of the Spanish ‘everything but the squeal’ traditional pig slaughter.)

Much of it is bound for Japan, where its deep red flesh is prized for sushi and sashimi: a single prime specimen can fetch more than €3,000,000 at auction. But not all is headed for the Toyosu auctions. Some goes north to Ribadesallas on the Asturias Coast. And it ends up in cans.

Las conservas de Güeyu Mar

That might sound an ignominious ending for such an ingredient. And from the outside, Restaurante Güeyu Mar might look an unlikely candidate for one of Spain’s- and Europe’s- leading fish asadores. But here, Abel Alvarez makes remarkable things happen in the kitchen and at your table.

And from here comes the finest canned seafood you might ever be lucky enough to taste.

But Güeyu Mar conservas aren’t just about that Almadraba tuna. There’s much more: cockles, sardines, razor clams, sardine tails and loins, elvers and more.

For Mercado 44, this is ‘the best tinned seafood on the planet.’ If you’re thinking, ‘Well, that’s just sales patter: they would say that, wouldn’t they?’, then I’ll raise you Bon Appetit magazine, which asked: ”How on earth could such a delicacy come from a can?’

When I interviewed Owen and Tom Morgan on the release of the Bar 44 cookbook, they were eloquent about what their experience at Güeyu Mar taught them. It was where José Andres took Antony Bourdain to crown their time in Asturias, for the last series of Parts Unknown (s12 e2)

I was intrigued to see these cans on sale in Britain: not just because of their reputation among lovers of Spanish food, but because the restaurant gave me a life-changing meal a couple of summers ago, a meal I still remember for its intricacies, its surprises and sheer joys.

I wrote about that meal here and it’s rare I go long without recalling it. It was a revelation. It set new standards, it recalibrated my expectations. It ruined fish for me just about anywhere else. And it’s the same expertise they bring to bear on their conservas.

These cans take me back to that table, as our server elegantly and eloquently served us a tasting menu from just one fish- the local specialty el rey– guiding us through the range of tastes and textures as they revealed themselves. I think about it often. It’s the sort of thing you should experience, if only once. But be warned: it casts a long shadow over every fish dish you’ll eat subsequently.

Los Mariscos

When your stock in trade is the freshest of the sea, from percebes (goose barnacles) harvested from nearby rocks at risk to life and limb, to fish from the bay outside their window, it might seem strange to operate a cannery.

But tinned fish is no poor relation to the Spanish, where it is seen very differently to the British. It’s not seen as some hugely inferior product, some cheap store cupboard standby. This is a nation obsessed with mariscos, whether fresh or preserved. No meal at my Abuelita’s table (or my aunts’ and uncles’, for that matter) ever failed to feature seafood in some form, from tiny whitebait or glistening sardines dredged through seasoned flour and fried to a deep gold, to two finger-thick steaks of hake in olive oil or heaped salvers of prawns ready to be tussled over. You might know imported brands like Herpac, Arroyabe or Ortiz. And they are very good, but what happens here is on another plane entirely.

All are cooked a la brasa– not steamed in the can, as is typical in commercial preparation- but grilled over combinations of wood- and typically canned in Arbequina extra virgin from de Castillo de Canena.

Hand-caught razor clams- navajas– have been chargrilled over a blend of birch, beech and oak. The oak is holm: the tree whose acorns litter the dehesa, eaten by the best pigs and resulting in those renowned jamónes. They aren’t going to win any marine beauty pageants, clearly.

But then many things can look quite presentable, attractive even, while actually leaving a deeply unpleasant aftertaste. Let’s call it ‘the Pritti Patel factor’.

And these are a real treat. The canning process lets them shine. They’re sweetly tender yet unmistakably meaty, smoky but subtly so; that oil is too precious to squander and demands crusty bread. These are so good you’ll want to eat them straight from the tin, with as few distractions as possible. It’s a recurrent theme.

If ‘calamares’ make you think that of tapas bar ubiquity- at its worst, those pallid, gummy bands so easily ruined- these will change your mind. These thumb-thick slices in ink blacker than a tyrant’s soul are canned with just a little onion and pepper, and I linger over each smoky, briny-sweet, meaty fork full. ‘De otro planeta‘ goes the 80s Galaxian video game-themed branding. From another planet. They’re not lying.

Mussels canned with pickle escabeche– extra virgin, apple cider vinegar- are plump and firm, are excellent examples of their type, captured at their peak, the subtly tart escabeche playing against the firm flesh.

Morillo

And so to that fish. So what’s the net result of all these wood-fired shenanigans? The obvious gag here is: ‘This isn’t any tinned tuna, this is… conservas de Güeyu Mar tinned tuna…’

But let’s bin the husky-voiced foodie frottage. And not just because anyone who tells you ‘I’m a right foodie, I am’ is precisely the kind of person you should be at pains to avoid, right before they start calling your local kebab van ‘a shawarma popup’ or ranking their favourite BakeOff contestants.

The titular tin is a portion of morrillo. The fleshy nape of the neck. Naturally, each fish can only yield a small portion, so this is a prime cut, and reflected in the price. It’ll set you back around £30.

This isn’t really about whether the idea of thirty quid for a tin of tuna strikes you as extraordinary. Preposterous, even. This may well be your line in the sand, your seventh impossible thing before breakfast. But if you’re open to persuasion the testimonials come thick and fast.

For Liverpool’s Lunya it is ‘Quite possibly, the contender for the best product we sell…Full of everything that is good for you. In terms of quality and prestige, think caviar, Rolls Royce and Raquel Welch at the height of her sexy, fleshy best. Quite possibly this will be the best £30 you have ever spent.’

The magnetic branding cleverly mimics the cut within, the little wedge missing from the diagram mirroring what’s inside your can.It is at heart, simple stuff, so I eat it straight from the tin. It has been treated with respect and restraint, just grilled and then tinned with oil and a touch of seasoning. It seems a shame to subject something like this to any distractions, however well-meaning. That leaves it no hiding place, and it doesn’t need any.

So how good is it? Well, there’s a challenge here, of course, in trying to describe food of genuinely startling quality. Incredible and amazing are thrown around wantonly on social media- sometimes, even by people who have actually paid for their meal- and flogged into irrelevance in a quest for likes. ‘Incredible’? That’s for a meal you’ll remember for months, surely. Something that makes you pause and wonder at the creativity and skill involved. The rare dish that makes you pause and put down your fork for a moment of quiet appreciation. Those moments are, by definition, few and far between.

A sun-breaks-through-the-clouds moment. Your lunchtime sandwich? Probably not. This tuna really does strain credulity, that something this instantly memorable could come from a can. That’s ‘incredible’. Not your last chow mein.

It merits every superlative. This is a sensuous, buttery indulgence: voluptuous stuff, lavishly rich and opulent. The belly (ventresca) is celebrated for its luxurious texture: this is just as rich, but firmer, the flesh rippled with strata of a rich fat which melts on your tongue.

This isn’t a cleverly packaged version of your ‘4 for three quid’ tinned tuna you buy for that scrotal microwaved baked potato. This is another experience entirely. Spanish Sabores draws an apt parallel with the difference between fresh pork and the salty-sweet splendour of the best bellotas.

Güeyu Mar also sell the ‘Ronqueo of Tuna’ pack. As you’d imagine, this collection of five cuts is nothing less than a guided tour of the fish. White loin, black loin, belly, mormo (the back of the head) and of course that morrillo. It’s €90,00 at time of writing, a tinned tasting menu.)

This morrillo is is- and it’s an another expression groaning under the weight of overuse, but still- world class. Part of me would love to tell you that spending this much on a single tin of tuna is ‘foodieism’ at its finest.

Which, of course, means its worst.

But this is that rare thing, something which will leave its mark on you. It takes you by the scruff of the neck, plants its tentacles and burrows its way into your memory in every good way.

Now, quite clearly, the finer details of marine biology escape me, but I do know this is one of those rare moments of revelation that it’s hard to put a price on.

I’m not suggesting you should order this weekly. It’s an indulgence. A luxury, albeit an affordable one. But as an experience, a sample of a rare cut handled masterfully? Go on. Just the once. You might be thinking, ‘Oh but I could have two pizzas or even a three course meal at ‘x’ for that…’ but this isn’t about something you can buy any day of the week and find replicated in ten other places in your city. It’s not about the quotidian. It’s about world-class produce.

It is, simply, extraordinary. And that’s worth experiencing.

I bought my Güeyu Mar conservas from Mevalco, but they are available from Mercado 44 and Liverpool’s Lunya.

Gueyu Mar at Mercado 44

Gueyu Mar at Lunya

Gueyu Mar at Mevalco