A celebrity chef and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee aren’t usually the same person. But the cheerful Spanish-born José Andrés, who cooked at elBulli, Ferran Adrià’s Catalonian bastion of avant-garde cuisine, before moving, in 1993, to D.C., where he laid the groundwork, with Jaleo, for an empire (he now has more than thirty restaurants), is the exception. He has a penchant for turning up in disaster zones to distribute thousands—and, in post-Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico, millions—of free hot meals. And that’s not to mention Andrés’s pro-immigration activism—an immigrant to the U.S. himself, he recently fed thousands of migrants in Tijuana, to call attention to the status of refugees in Mexico. So how does one reconcile this world-class humanitarianism with a venture in Hudson Yards, the oft-reviled multibillion-dollar complex of luxury offices, apartments, shops, restaurants, and a staircase to nowhere, in lower midtown? It’s actually easy, because Andrés’s market there, which he opened in March with the brothers Ferran and Albert Adrià, is an exuberant labor of love.
One of the stand-alone restaurants within Mercado Little Spain is Mar, where the menu includes the requisite gambas al ajillo, large head-on shrimp with fried garlic slivers.
Mercado Little Spain, a sort of Spanish Eataly, stands apart from other new dining establishments at Hudson Yards (including concepts from Thomas Keller and David Chang) with, first of all, its ground-level entrance. (The others are deeply ensconced in the mall, past stores like Fendi and Patek Philippe, up many escalators.) On entry, you are greeted by a riot of color and a buzzing maze of fifteen kiosks, modelled on the bazaars of Spain, offering different regional specialties.
There’s Tortilla de Patatas, where the classic Spanish omelette oozes a near-liquid center of caramelized onion and soft potato. Bocatas & Empanadas hawks “bikinis,” a great name for a hot ham-and-cheese sandwich. The empanadas are not the Hot Pocket variety but a Galician style, sliced from a full rectangle of burnished puff pastry encasing fillings like a delicious sweet-savory pork.
A highlight is the humblest of dishes, pan con tomate, for which long, narrow sheaths of bread—pan de cristal, flown in from Spain—and toasted, rubbed with garlic and tomato pulp, and topped with olive oil and extra-large flakes of salt.
At the paella counter, you can choose between Valenciana, with chicken and rabbit, and Verdura, with green beans and artichokes. There’s also a show, as cooks prepare vast quantities of the rice dish in giant shallow steel pans over a wood fire. A highlight is the humblest of dishes, pan con tomate. Long, narrow sheaths of bread—pan de cristal, flown in from Spain—are split lengthwise, toasted, rubbed with garlic and tomato pulp, and topped with olive oil and extra-large flakes of salt. If you eat it right away, taking advantage of its peak warm, crunchy, salty unctuousness, you won’t even wish it were pizza—which is good, because there’s no pizza here. Instead, there are cocas, which look like pizza but aren’t, as cheeky murals on the wall insist.
The menu at Leña, whose focus is wood-fired meats, includes an ibérico de bellota tasting that is crowned with shards of crispy pigskin. Pre-butchered cuts are sold by the pound for cooking at home.
Even if your intentions are chaste—a nice clean glass of gazpacho, a few croquetas—it’s easy to slide into debauchery. You can also do this the old-fashioned way, at any of three restaurants. Tucked into the corners of the space are the casual Spanish Diner; Leña, whose focus is wood-fired meats, including an ibérico de bellota tasting, in which the famous ham made from the meat of acorn-fed pigs is crowned with crispy shards of skin; and Mar, a savvy showcase for seafood. Mar’s requisite gambas al ajillo, large head-on shrimp with fried garlic slivers, can advisedly be accompanied by chunks of red snapper marinated in vinegar and a pimenton-heavy Canary Islands spice mixture, a forest of fat white asparagus blanketed in mayonnaise, and a rich squid-ink rice, salty like the ocean. Those who still regret never taking that trip to elBulli (it closed in 2011) can find comfort in liquid olives, or in the resurrected Gambas al Estilo de elBulli 1996, a plate of translucent shaved shrimp topped with the expressed juices of the heads.
On entry, you are greeted by a riot of color and a buzzing maze of fifteen kiosks, modelled on the bazaars of Spain, offering different regional specialties.
Andrés remains a policy wonk in chef’s clothing. On the “Today” show recently, he gave a paella demonstration while touting the organization Wellness in the Schools, which brings healthy local ingredients to public-school lunches. On “60 Minutes,” he told a skeptical Anderson Cooper that vegetables are better than meat and “unbelievably sexy.” Give this man a prize, or at least try his jamón. (Kiosk dishes $2.50-$21.) ♦
