Elite Traveler Summer 2024

elite traveler SUMMER 2024 129

Fromtop Atrio has become one of Spain’s most accomplished restaurants; sommelier José Luis Paniagua; Atrio counts 40,000 bottles from 23 countries in its cellar

JOSÉ LUIS PANIAGUA ATRIO, CÁCERES, SPAIN ‘Culinary Mecca’ is a phrase brandished around without much conviction. Atrio, however, is a restaurant (and Relais & Châteaux-accredited hotel) worthy of it. It is not the type of place you stumble upon by accident — it is in the city of Cáceres, a pretty and historical (you might recognize it as a Game of Thrones fi lming location) but admittedly relatively small and inaccessible destination in western Spain. Chances are, if you’re visiting, you’re looking for Atrio. Opened in 1986 (but since moved to fl ashy new holdings) by chef Juan Antonio “Toño” Pérez and wine connoisseur and collector José Polo, Atrio is a quiet but impossibly accomplished restaurant; a reservation there has become one of Spain’s most coveted currencies. It held two Michelin stars for 18 years for its immersive, creative take on classic Spanish cuisine before eventually, in 2023, receiving its crowning jewel: a third Michelin star. The restaurant made the headlines for all the wrong reasons in 2021, when it was the victim of a high-scale wine theft: In the dead of night, a couple posing as guests made o ff with over €1.6m (approx. $1.7m) worth of wine, including several prized bottles of Château d’Yquem. “Those bastards had stolen the most special stu ff ,” Polo told The Guardian last year. The thieves are now behind bars and the restaurant is moving on (although those precious bottles never did make it back home). Atrio counts 40,000 bottles from 23 countries in its vast cellar, and it falls on the head of sommelier José Luis Paniagua, who has been at the restaurant for 14 years, to translate this mammoth collection for those fortunate enough to dine at the restaurant. Paniagua’s career began in London in the early aughts where he undertook WSET training before joining the sommelier team on board a Cunard cruise for two years. Back in London, he moved to the iconic The Ritz as assistant head sommelier. “I couldn’t believe it,” Paniagua says. “Sometimes dreams come true.” Eventually, though, Spain called him home. “To San Sebastián no less, to Andoni Luis Aduriz’s Mugaritz,” he recalls. “I remember this time because I received a very speci fi c type of clientele for Michelin-starred restaurants: people who were truly devoted to haute cuisine. And it was after San Sebastián that I fi nally returned to Cáceres, my home […] Atrio is by far the project with which I have felt most identi fi ed. I am in my homeland; it is a place with a lot of soul and passion as well as being the most important wine cellar in which I have worked.” While the brave may wish to attempt Atrio’s mammoth wine list alone, the less experienced, the more relaxed or the more trusting can put themselves in Paniagua’s safe hands with a pairing. Journeying through some of the world’s fi nest vineyards, the fl ight is an exposure to wine’s pinnacle. “We try to have the best possible wines from every wine region in the world,” he says. “We [want to] o ff er diners a wine proposal that suits their tastes, but at the same time be creative by recommending wines they may not know and making them discover new regions.” atriocaceres.com

UNUSUAL PAIRINGS “I remember a speci fi ccase when we had to create a dessert to pair with a sweet sherry wine, a Pedro Ximénez (PX). These are extremely sweet and unctuous wines, so our chef decided to create a half- fi nished dessert: a dessert with ingredients that if you took it on its own was not a dessert, but if after taking a bite of the dessert you took a sip of the PX, it all made sense. It was a very special proposal.” — José Luis Paniagua