Barro

Local, ecologically minded ingredients, a focus on a zero-waste philosophy, artisanally produced crockery and support for local small-scale producers are all key here. In this restaurant, which occupies an impressively refurbished 200-year-old warehouse previously used to store flour, the team works according to a single mantra: “cooking the past from the present, but with an eye on the future”. Fronted by Ávila-born chef Carlos Casillas, the restaurant features a kitchen visible from the dining room and boasts superb views of the city’s walls from the opposite bank of the River Adaja. His cuisine, which views food as a “live ecosystem”, is showcased on a single, creatively inspired tasting menu called Volver that the chef uses to surprise guests and pay homage to his origins and to all the people (kitchen team, breeders, farmers, artisans etc) who contribute to Barro’s day-to-day existence. The constantly evolving dishes here follow a series of unusually named stages (Caresses, Abstraction, Balance, Chiaroscuro, Mistreatment, Fires etc).