Valery C.
Yelp
Floral accents can be found throughout the sleek, bright, and open space of Regadera, Spanish for watering can. There was an a-ha moment when we idly looked up the meaning of the name while sipping a few craft beers, brewed in Cordoba. Odd theme for an eatery, yet tastefully used to create an ambience like a summer backyard party, albeit one at a more affluent home than I'm used to.
This is a sophisticated restaurant. The dishes are elegantly constructed, centered on Spanish cuisine with international influences, and beautifully plated. As casual as the restaurant may appear, the food would be at home in a far more imposing place. The prices are commensurate with that, yet a steal for the quality served.
Their salmorejo, a soup native to Cordoba and so recently a subject for introduction while traveling in Andalusia, is a superb version. Flawlessly creamy, rich, refreshing, and fragrant with olive oil, served with refined versions of the usual toppings: crushed soft-boiled egg, bread crumbs, and acorn Iberian ham.
Another revelatory food find in Spain were ortiguillas de mar, or sea anemones. Regadera prepares it the way it is most liked here, battered and deep-fried, then perches them atop a beautiful mound of eggs soft-scrambled with seaweed, doused with briny beads of trout roe. The touches of the sea are apropos. The eggs are a fabulous pairing. The anemones themselves? Nutty, almost like some offal in flavor, tender with a slight chew, and encased in a perfectly executed batter, light as air.
As with most Spanish restaurants, there is no sense of rush. We could have sipped beer or coffee, enjoyed a dish or two along with the complimentary olives and bread basket with butter at the same pace as anywhere else, which is to say hours. The staff, much more confident in English than most places we visited although we still gamely ordered in Spanish, were friendly and there as needed.
A lovely find in Cordoba, on the Guadalquivir river, close to the Mezquita.
