Asian Cuisine meets Spanish at Oushi Toro in Estepona
The Kempinski Hotel Bahia in Estepona has introduced a new fusion style in their summer restaurant Oushi Toro, which combines Spanish classics with Asian flavours and techniques to create something unique and utterly delicious. The brainchild of award winning paella chef Raul Cobb, this bold new concept effortlessly blends these two incredible culinary traditions into one.
“I believe that Spanish food is the best in the world, but also love Asian styles and flavours and wanted to create something new, which brought together my two favourite cuisines”, Chef Cobb explains. “To choose the name, we combined the word Oushi, which means bull in Japanese and Toro, which means bull in Spanish and took a similar blending approach with the menu. I am very proud of this concept and was delighted to receive praise from prominent chefs including Jose Andres, as well as our guests and the media. If you want to try something new and different and love both Spanish and Asian cuisine, then this is the restaurant for you.”
Raul suggests choosing the Tasting Menu, to fully understand the concept and let the chefs choose the very best dishes. Highlights include, the Nigiris with slow cooked pork marinated with hoisin sauce and layered with pineapple and avocado. This is a wonderful balance of sweet and salty, with the rich pork and sticky sushi rice working perfectly together. There is an amazing king prawns, avocado, mango and yuzu tartar, which is perfect for a hot summer evening.
Two of the best sellers are the gyoza dumplings filled with oxtail stew, which simply melts in the mouth and the crispy croquettes with panko breadcrumbs and filled with octopus and locally caught prawns which burst with flavour. The Tuna Sashimi Marmitako, is the perfect example of this fusion concept, taking the idea of Basque Country Marmitako tuna stew, but using tuna sashimi, the classic marmitako sauce, with potato foam and a puree of edamame beans and wasabi, to make something new and delicious.
To try the chef’s favourite dish, you will have to leave some room for desert and be prepared for a real surprise. He has created a spicy ice cream from azuki beans and then balanced that with a sweet mango soup, cut with yuzu and with a biscuit crumb that will perfectly round off the meal. This was the dish particularly praised by legendary Spanish chef Jose Andres and a flavour combination you will never have tried before.
Oushi Toro is the summer restaurant of the 5* Grand Luxe Kempinski Hotel Bahia on Spain’s Costa del Sol. It is open Tuesday to Saturday from 18.30-23.00 until the end of September. The taster menu includes 6 courses and costs 67€ per person, excluding drinks. For more information and to book email culinary.estepona@kempinski.com or call +34 952 809 500.