For me, Mesón José María is synonymous with simplicity. Far from being sophisticated, it tries to make people feel at home, and that’s how I feel on the many occasions when I end up having tapas at the bar; a little good ham, a plate of cheese even better, or some garlic prawns that drive me crazy.
It’s a meeting place after work. Before it was located in the El Torno industrial estate and now in an industrial estate and now in the Ugaldenea Shopping Centre, Local 1, in La Barrosa. If you sit at a table and order fried fish, whether it’s pijotas, anchovies, red mullet… Antonia and her daughter Lola will serve you the best of the best, fed up with the good work in a long career serving all kinds of diners.
We get to the meat: there appears José Mari, Antonia’s son and Lola’s brother, more familiar than ever. His art is to give the grill a perfect finish, and not everyone has that art. He excels at it! If you don’t want to complicate things, order fried eggs with potatoes and, if you’re feeling fancy, ask for ham on top; you’ll see that less is more and that, without being laboratory food, the experience will blow you away.
Accompany some sea anemones with a glass of wine and you’ll think you’re at the beach: They taste like the sea! Whether in a scrambled egg with fried shrimp, these girls make it phenomenal.
El Mesón is, above all, a welcoming place where you surround yourself with good people, good people. Those friends who make your life a little easier, make you laugh and support you with a “I’ll buy you a drink.”
This restaurant has no other ambition than to make you feel comfortable, that you eat well and leave wanting to come back. I plan to continue being a regular customer, because when I go out that’s what I want; some tapas, a glass of wine, a little bit of fun with happy people… A place without etiquette or protocol, just like being at home.
It is a place that we recommend to Casa de la Vega clients, as I say it is not a formal place, but you will come back, do not hesitate.
Don’t forget to book, because it has a lot of regular customers. Telephone 956 53 10 12
Address: Ctra. de la Barrosa, 109, 11139 Chiclana de la Frontera, Cádiz
TEXT BY Silvia Bernaldez