Monvinic is run by Head Chef Adriana Julian. According to her ‘Food is nutrition for the body, but with passion and dedication, you can give pleasure and bring happiness, beauty and fullness for the soul’. Let the church say AMEN! Yass hanty, I stan!
Entering the restaurant, I loved what they did with the space, wines displayed across the restaurant, beautiful garden space in the back and the kitchen with clear glass panes so you get to see chef and her team in action.
The restaurant is known for having an extensive collection of wines from around the world. I loved how Sophie (our female sommelier) introduced the wine selection(s) to us. Their wine catalogue (which is presented to you on a handheld device), is in alphabetical order, categorised according to country, vintage, price, by glass, by bottle, et al, the search combinations are endless but more impressive is the time and effort to put all that information together. Yet, to us, the customers all we need to do is ‘swipe’ lol, like I always say, details people, DETAILS!!!!!
Our 7-course menu consisted of food from both land and sea and was typical tapas style eating synonymous with the Spaniards. Neal and I reckon that we were served dishes based on what was available from the market that day and to be honest, we aren’t mad at all. We started off with a selection of olives and finished with cheese. The salad though? – pomegranate, feta cheese, green beans, avocado and walnuts! This was no alfresco salad from the supermarket. It tasted yummy, the crunch of the walnuts and green beans gave me the same feeling I get from Kellogg’s rice crispy lol! The aubergine course was equally delightful – accompanied with shallots, mushrooms and grilled lamb, so good!
When it comes to fish, Neal is not a fan, especially, with mackerel. I am partially to blame because I literally eat this every other week! Like OMEGA 3?! hello…come on now! Anyway, Neal can’t deal with mackerel fish, he thinks the smell is too fishy (err duh?) plus, the way I tend to make it in eforiro[1] or in a tomato sauce, the smell of the mackerel can get a bit heavy. He was a bit hesitant about trying out the mackerel dish, but he did not mind it at all (go figure!) Mackerel is such a tasty fish that does not require too much (well most fish don’t, to be honest) and this dish was exactly that. A slice of Mackerel gently looked in a bed of creamy red sauce (tomato & cheese)- done! simple yet so badass! We also had other dishes in the sea food category which went down a treat too.
I am a sucker for the muscat grape used for making dessert wines! With the extensive wine collection here, choosing our dessert wine was no easy task. Sofia was excellent at educating us on the various things – grapes, soil, acidity and textures of the various dessert wines in their collection and we were happy with her recommendations. Trust me, being the boss sommelier that she is, she makes it her business to know, anticipate and recommend fantastic wines and I love her for it! We narrowed down our selection to 3 wines and my favourite was the honey liquor wine from Catalonia. I don’t have to say why this was my fav right? the proof is in the name!
The desserts tasted even more heavenly with the wines!
Muchas gracias Monvinic por un tiempo fantastic!
salud
Ndidi
P.s. Yep! they dont mess around with their wines here
[1] Efo riro is a green leafy / spinach soup from the southern region of Nigeria