Celebrity chef José Pizarro carefully places his traditional Christmas centrepiece on the table at the Bermondsey home he shares with his psychotherapist husband Peter. You can forget about turkey, though – it’s a whole roasted sea bass stuffed with lemon and bay leaves sitting on saffron-infused potatoes.
And it’s not actually Christmas, of course, but a photoshoot held in October for Decanter’s Christmas food and drink feature. Nor does Pizarro spend Christmas in London, but in the beautiful village of Talaván in Cáceres, Extremadura – in Spain’s rural far west – where he grew up, and to where he returns every year.
It seems we can’t get enough of Pizarro’s cooking – he has just opened his seventh restaurant, Lolo in Bermondsey Street, south of the river near Tower Bridge (his third on the same street), and his cookbooks continue to fly off the shelves – six titles since 2009’s Seasonal Spanish Food (Kyle Books), including three available currently via his website: Basque: Spanish recipes from San Sebastian & beyond (£18 Hardie Grant, 2016); Recipes from Andalusia (£18.99 Hardie Grant, 2019; reprint 2023); and The Spanish Home Kitchen (£33 Hardie Grant, June 2022). So who can blame us for wanting a sneaky peek into the Pizarro family Christmas?
Rapid ascent
Often described as the Godfather of Spanish cooking, Pizarro has lived in London for more than 25 years, working in some of the capital’s most prestigious Spanish restaurants before opening his first solo venture in 2011: José Tapas Bar on Bermondsey Street. A Barcelona home away from home, it went down a storm, enabling him to open his more ambitious Pizarro restaurant further up the same street later that year, which won a slew of awards.
Pizarro then launched three further restaurants in the capital: by Liverpool Street station, José Pizarro Broadgate Circle (about to be renamed Bar Plaza – ‘The name references the beating heart of every Spanish town’); another hot ticket, José Pizarro at the Royal Academy of Arts; and The Swan Inn, a pub in Esher, in London’s suburban southwestern fringes – he had always wanted to open a country pub with a roaring fire.
And then there’s a growing consultancy with P&O Cruises, an Abu Dhabi restaurant and a swanky seaside villa in Andalusía, Iris Zahara, where you can get up close and personal during one of Pizarro’s cookery experiences. He’s busy, certainly, but never too busy to miss Christmas at home – in fact, he’s only ever missed one Christmas in Spain, when bad weather prevented the journey.
Credit: Catharine Lowe / Decanter
Festive fish
Unlike in the UK, Christmas Eve is the most important day in the festive calendar for the Spanish. And for the Pizarro family, fish is always on the menu, as it is in many other Spanish households on Christmas Eve, even in landlocked regions such as Extremadura.
‘We always cook a big fish for Christmas Eve. My mum might be 91 years old, but she still wants a little control in the kitchen. These days, though, it’s mainly me doing the cooking, with my sister helping. Yet my mum still looks at me occasionally, shaking her head, wondering what I’m doing. But I think she trusts me in the kitchen now,’ Pizarro says with a chuckle. ‘Normally we cook sea bass, but really it’s whatever we can get. I’m not fussy, as long as it’s a whole fish – the flavour is just so much better.’
The fish is stuffed with lemon and bay leaves, and placed on top of a tray of potatoes. ‘We slice waxy potatoes, add whole shallots, fat cloves of garlic, capers, saffron and white wine. We cook that in the oven for a bit first then lay the fish on top and cook it some more. It’s that simple,’ he explains. ‘We serve it with a salsa, which is usually made with parsley, oregano and roasted garlic.’ To drink with it? Always a red wine, declares Pizarro. ‘I’m often asked why I choose red with fish, but these are big flavours, which need a big wine. We usually drink gran reserva Rioja,’ he says. ‘Last year, it was a 2016, which still has a lot of fruit.’
The evening always kicks off with bubbles, says Pizarro, invariably his own-label fizz, produced for his restaurants by Bodegas Gramona in Alt Penedès (the producer left the Cava DO in 2017, together with a few others, to create their own designation, Corpinnat) – currently a classy 2018 gran reserva brut nature. The accompanying nibbles may surprise – an array of tinned fish.
‘People don’t understand tinned fish in the UK,’ says Pizarro. ‘Take our anchovies, for example. The Reserva Catalina Cantabrian anchovies are something special and are rarely seen. Matured in salt for two years, they have a unique colour, aroma and flavour.’
Pizarro sells the prized anchovies through his online shop for £22 for 10-12 (‘large’) fillets, and in his new restaurant Lolo, they’re offered for £36.50 on the menu, which boasts a special tinned section that also includes clams for £52 and chipirones (baby squid) in their own ink for £11.50.
‘My team initially advised me not to sell tinned seafood for those kinds of prices in the UK, and I thought, “Well, if they don’t sell, I’ll eat them”. But they sold like hotcakes. For Christmas, we just open the tin and serve them on a plate with some bread to mop up the olive oil,’ he explains.
And there’s always jamón to accompany the fizz, carved into paper-thin slices just before eating. The Iberian pig is a key ingredient of Extremaduran cuisine, and the region produces some of the best cured ham in the world.
Credit: Catharine Lowe / Decanter
Going for goat
Christmas Eve dinner always kicks off with a seafood starter, Pizarro continues. ‘Usually, it’s prawns cooked with garlic and chillies, which we serve with chilled fino en rama. People need to understand more about Sherry. They just need to try it, and once they do, they’ll be hooked. I’m also a big lover of the Spanish new wave of wines, especially in the Rioja region, but I also urge people not to forget the fathers of those young winemakers,’ says Pizarro, before sharing his love for old-style Rioja, from producers such as Marqués de Murrieta and López de Heredia.
The focus in Spain is gradually shifting towards Christmas Day, reports Pizarro, when presents are generally now opened, rather than the tradition of waiting until Three Kings Day on 6 January, another important date in the Spanish Christmas calendar. Christmas Day is also when he gets to eat his all-time favourite dish: baby goat.
‘Not a whole roasted goat, you understand, but a goat stew,’ he says, running through the list of ingredients, which include garlic, choricero peppers, pimentón de la vera (paprika), bay leaf and white wine. ‘It’s so simple, and it cooks for less than an hour. We serve it with a salad and fried potatoes. It’s the best,’ raves Pizarro.
The Christmas Day goat stew is eaten with sides that include blanched baby carrots, Brussels sprouts with bacon – husband Peter’s British contribution – and red cabbage cooked with raisins and Pedro Ximénez (PX) Sherry vinegar.
It turns out that Peter is the baker in the family. ‘I make a mean coffee and walnut sponge,’ he says with a grin as he joins the conversation, accompanied by the pair’s two ‘girls’: miniature schnauzers Conchi and Maggie Pie. Peter’s task is to make the Christmas Day dessert – an almond-rich Santiago tart with cream enriched with PX Sherry, which is also sipped with the pud. The couple, who’ve been married for 14 years, favour the PX from Fernando de Castilla; there’s also always a bottle of González Byass Matusalem open. ‘It’s Christmas in a glass for me,’ says the chef of the intensely rich 30-year-old oloroso.
And talking more of wines, what does Pizarro like to serve with the Christmas Day starter of simply cooked shellfish? ‘Usually an old-style, old-vintage white Rioja,’ he replies. ‘Which is typically followed by a new-wave Spanish red for the goat – whatever we’re in the mood for, which at the moment are the still wines coming out of Cádiz, but I might also look to Priorat.’
Credit: Catharine Lowe / Decanter
Busy times ahead
So, what’s next for Pizarro? Apart from spreading the word about superior tinned fish, and bringing back the devilled egg (a classic tapas dish) thanks to another fun section of the menu at Lolo, there’s a new cookbook coming out next May, published by Hardie Grant – 100 recipes using 12 key ingredients, including saffron and tomatoes – which he’s particularly excited about.
Until then, it’s Christmas to which the couple are most looking forward, with Peter offering the last word. ‘If you don’t have kids, it’s a different experience. For us, it’s the excitement of the food, drink and company. That’s our Christmas.’
Credit: Catharine Lowe / Decanter
Whole roast sea bass with saffron and lemon, with a herb and roast garlic salsa
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 4 banana shallots, cut into wedges
- 2 bulbs garlic, cloves separated from one, the other left whole
- 500g waxy potatoes, thinly sliced
- good pinch saffron threads soaked in 1 tbsp of just-boiled water
- 12-16 caperberries
- olive oil to drizzle
- 2 lemons
- 1 large or 2 smaller seabass, cleaned
- 120ml white wine
- 4 sprigs oregano, leaves stripped
- large handful flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
- good pinch smoked pimenton
- 120ml extra virgin olive oil
Method
1. Heat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6
2. Toss the shallots, garlic, potatoes, saffron and caperberries in a roasting tin together, drizzle with a good amount of olive oil and season well.
3. Season the fish inside and out, finely slice one of the lemons and put half of the slices inside the fish and the rest scattered over the vegetables. Set the fish aside.
4. Roast the potatoes for 20 minutes then toss well and pour in the wine, sit the seabass on top and roast for a further 20-25 minutes until the fish and vegetables are tender.
5. Make the salsa: squeeze the garlic from the whole roasted bulb and mash with a fork then mix with the oregano, chopped parsley, pimenton and the finely grated zest and juice from the other lemon. Drizzle in the extra virgin olive oil and serve with the fish.
Credit: Catharine Lowe / Decanter
Pan-fried prawns with garlic, chilli, Cava and crispy jamón
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 100g jamón Ibérico, sliced thinly into little strips
- 2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
- good pinch chilli flakes
- 12 large raw prawns
- good splash of Cava
- small handful flat leaf parsley, chopped
- extra virgin olive oil to drizzle
- lemon wedges to squeeze
Method
1. Heat the oil in a pan and fry the jamón over a medium-high heat until crispy and golden. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
2. Add the garlic and chilli to the pan and cook for a minute until fragrant then add the prawns and cook until they are pink all over, turning halfway and adding a splash of Cava to make a juicy sauce. Season well.
3. Spoon onto a warmed platter and scatter with the crispy jamón and parsley, then add a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and serve with lemon wedges and crusty bread.
Credit: Catharine Lowe / Decanter
Styling by Rebecca Newport
