Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/02/07/this-restaurant-in-spain-hasn.html
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Clearly the oven is actually the prison of a horrible suckling pig demon that will lay waste to Madrid should the oven ever be extinguished.
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Ate here when my parents came to visit last July. I’m not one to complain about “rude” service (especially in Spain), but damn they want to turn tables fast. We were in there for less than an hour, and my dad still had food in his mouth when the waiter started asking him if he was finished. The food’s fine, and the history and location are cool, but if you’re looking to eat without being rushed, you might as well just walk the twenty meters to Plaza Mayor.
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That’ old. but not the oldest by far, according to Wiki:
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I would like to pretend I wasn’t here to make a similar comment. It was like eating in a bus station. Bum’s rush all around. Considering how excellent the food is a hundred feet in either direction, it could probably go down as the most regretted restaurant in the world.
I wonder if it was a total tourist trap three centuries ago.
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Well, as long as they have changed the fat in the deep fryers once in a while.
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Clearly. After all Madrid is the word for evil in Enochian, language of angels. What else would an eternal flame be there, except hellfire?
@Jon_Wilson1 yes, but i think the point is that operation here has been literally continuous, with the oven never not being lit for nearly 300 years.
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Their site says it’s a wood oven. How do they clean the chimney? (You wouldn’t clean a hot chimney, would you? (Would they let the fire die down to nearly nothing? Would that let the chimney be cool enough to clean then?)
Hmm, I’d bet @Medievalist could tell us something about how it’s done…
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It occurs to me that the oven could have more than one chamber and more than one chimney, so that at least one is always in use.
If I’ve been running the fire continuously (as I like to do in winter) I’d have to let my chimney cool off for a couple of days before cleaning it out.
I am extremely skeptical about any claim to an oven running continuously for 300 years. The building appears to be brick; the flue lining would need to be somewhat magical to avoid any need to regrout in that time span.
Ah, but looking at the Gonzalez engravings, there’s more than one oven. So perhaps it’s poetic license, and they’ve never let all the ovens go out at once.
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It sounds like the Emperor candle at the Unseen University, which has never gone out in 2000 years. (And has “never gone out” several times during the current candle knave’s service.)
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I can actually remember eating there about 40 years ago, and it actually was pretty darn good back then. Much better sucking pig than the other touristy joint that was advertised all over the place as where Hemingway used to go. The prices weren’t at all bad either. Mind you back then the pre-EU Spanish prices were insanely good across the board, if you were shopping with dollars.
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“… Alvarez hopes to keep the doors open for centuries to come.”
I don’t think Mr. Alvarez will be around for centuries hoping to keep it open. Then again, @Jorpho observation could change that.
If a chimney is solidly built, perhaps with overlapping stones and not mortar, it’s possible it would never degrade. And if you burn a fire hot enough up through it, you can burn off any creosote that might have built up. Or just go up there every once in a while and run a brush down it. You can do it if the fire isn’t too hot.
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Yes. The reminder notes to change the fat out every 40 or 50 years are kept in time capsules.
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Along with the oven deal, I’m skeptical about the claim about it never having closed its doors since it was opened.
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Sounds drafty.
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In the old PBS Millennium series with Michael Wood, I think in the China segment he mentioned this restaurant in China which claims to go back 800 years or so http://www.thechinesequest.com/2014/01/worlds-oldest-chinese-restaurant-ma-yu-changs-bucket-chicken-house/
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Thanks for the heads up.
I will go there sooner or later and will remember that!
(first Barcelona, against CNN’s recommendation, finger crossed).
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Most of the oldest companies are booze, food, and hotels. Basic needs will never change.
