A SPANISH RESTAURANT IN LONDON’S MAYFAIR
Santiago de Compostela, on Spain’s Galician coast, was up there with Rome and Jerusalem for medieval pilgrims. It’s where the remains of the apostle, Saint James, son of Zebedee are said to have been buried. The city grew around the shrine of St James, and the name actually derives from Sanctus Iacobus, vulgar Latin for St James.
Tarta de Santiago at El Pirata of Mayfair
Legend has it that St James preached in Spain and when he died his disciples brought him back to Galicia to be buried in a marble coffin. In the 9th century, a star shining on a wood led a hermit to St James’s grave on what is now the site of Santiago de Compostela’s 800 year old cathedral. (Compostela means either field of stars, or simply burial ground.)
TARTA DE SANTIAGO THE GALICIAN WONDER
Even today, more than 200,000 pilgrims a year make a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, two thirds of them walking the 780km camino from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port on the French side of the Pyrenees.
Spanish Desserts at El Pirata of Mayfair
However you get there, the city is well worth the visit with its magnificently well preserved medieval buildings alongside a modern university and regional government headquarters. “You are in a magic city, where even the stones understand one another,” a leading Santiago citizen once said. “They are all different styles but they are in harmony.”
THE CAKE OF ST JAMES
Galician cuisine is rustic, featuring fish, shellfish and octopus from the Atlantic as well as ribeiro and albariño wines. Of particular note is Tarta de Santiago – literally, the cake of St James – made from ground almonds, eggs and sugar with lemon zest, sweet wine, brandy or grape marc. The top of the cake is usually decorated with powdered sugar, stencilled with the cross of Saint James. In 2010, the EU gave the cake ‘protected’ status.
Dessert Menu Mayfair
But you don’t have to walk 780km to try it. It’s on the dessert menu at El Pirata of Mayfair in Down Street, a traditional Spanish restaurant in London.
