Casqueria: La Cocina Simepre, Como Nunca Antes

As long as humans have been eating animals, they have eaten offal. It’s only in the last century or so that a chef who embraces the preparation of these so-called variety meats has been notable. Madrid chef Javi Estévez earned his Michelin star in 2019 for cooking that often features offal, including items that don’t always appear at other restaurants renowned for the same. Along with more familiar ingredients such as liver, marrow, sweetbreads, and tongue, the chef offers udder, intestines, and snouts. At times offal is the centerpiece of a dish, as in tripe with chickpeas and curry, and at others it is simply one of several elements in something more complex, such as a dish of pig tails with eel and cheese. Although Estévez is inspired by the long history of offal cooking, he’s clearly not a strict traditionalist, nor is he interested only in typical Spanish usages. He uses lamb tongue with prawns in a ssam, serves duck hearts with a raspberry and licorice sweet-and-sour sauce, and