Asturian
Area: Bernabeu
Category: Heavyweight. It can reach Super-heavyweight if you go for the fancy wines
Having located this very interesting restaurant (Asturian with a twist, sounded like) close to the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, I called them to book a table, and I unknowingly picked the one evening when Real Madrid was playing at home. On top of that, I smartly decided to take the car to reach the restaurant, hoping it would be faster. As a result I got there in 10 minutes, found a parking spot in 45 minutes and managed to be extremely late.
So before you book, check if there is any football match on that day, and if there is, don't go by car.
The place
In terms of physical spaces, Viavélez is kind of a hybrid, like two different things piled up on each other: the restaurant, small and cozy with its dozen or so tables, and the more informal taberna at ground floor. Prices in the taberna are less steep, and often you can order the same food that is served downstairs (although portions seem smaller).
Everywhere the decor appears elegant and very modern, with lots of white and grey, an urban we-mean-business style that couldn't be further away from the checkered tablecloths and stereotype pictures that you would normally associate to venues with a regional connotation.
Because first and foremost, this is an Asturian restaurant: it is named after a pueblo located on the northern coast of Spain, and its menu is clearly founded on recipes that originated from that region.
The food
You can pick from a range of rather elaborate traditional dishes, like the famous fabada or the funnily-named patatas a la importancia. You can also go for simpler preparations, such as the salpicón de bogavante, or the impressive entrecote, a towering structure made of various slices of beef. In this case the ingredients being used are the real stars: simplicity brings out the freshness and tastyness of the building materials of the dish. Both meat and seafood here are of outstanding quality.
On top of all this, there is also a good amount of unexpected, as chef and owner Paco Ron throws in the pot some experimental haute cuisine, the kind that gets rewarded with Michelin stars. Things then can get pretty strange: see for example the bonito con chocolate y reducción de piña, or the whole bunch of very stylish desserts.
So we could say Viavélez is a hybrid also in a gastronomic sense, as it practices a very unusual (and very successful) blend of tradition and innovation. It basically combines the best of two worlds: on one side it makes an extreme effort in the selection of awesome ingredients, and it builds on an orthodox repertoire of perfectly executed recipes - the kind of things you would expect from an exceptional Asturian restaurant of traditional breed. On the other hand, it also shows a taste for the complex techniques and variations that are commonly associated to those fashionable Michelin-starred cocineros. In short, it's kind of a restaurant for all seasons, with something to offer to every possible kind of customer, to Whigs and Tories alike.
Anything bad?
I'd say the rules of the menu degustación are objectionable. Basically, this epic menu (really great, as it includes a lot of courses and allows you to sample many different things) can be ordered only if the whole table wants it, regardless if you are a group of six or four or two. This I found rather awkward: it obviously means that two people that fancy the menu degustación AND are sitting by themselves will get it, but if these same two people have brought friends that don't share the same preferences then nope, not possible, sorry. Maybe there is a logic behind this and it's just not obvious to me?
Not much else to whine about, to be honest. The service is great, it matches the expectations that you can legitimately have for a place of this level. The waiters have a very formal way of addressing you, and this can be kind of intimidating for a certain type of restaurant-goer; and maybe they are also a tiny bit too present, checking on you very often... nah, but I am being VERY picky here, truth is, service is just great, like I said.
Overall
Excellent. The wine list is also very good, lots of choice and quality, also in terms of dessert wines. Price of bottles goes from 21 euros up to thousands. And talking about price, this is not exactly a budget restaurant, but in my opinion the expense is actually justified by the quality of what you buy. Smartly enough, in-between courses they bring you lots of (like the French would say) amuse-bouche, free little portions of food, sort of like tapas or candies. So in the end you genuinely feel you got a lot of stuff for what you paid.
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