Fermín Cabanillas I Seville, (EFE).- When musical notes join the stove. Music and gastronomy, the commitment to this pairing was risky at the time, when the celebration of the Iconic Seville Fest was proposed, the event that for more than a month fills the Plaza de España in the capital of Andalusia with concerts and that has an ingredient added: to sell not only music, but the city as a gastronomic concept.
This pairing is not the result of improvisation. When the management of the festival considered what the first edition would be like, that of 2021, they thought that they had to provide some element that would distinguish it from other similar events apart from the impressive concert stage, the square designed by Aníbal González almost a century ago.
That different element was Seville and its gastronomy, as explained to EFE by the director of the festival, Javier Esteban, who goes back to 2019-2020 to explain that “from the very beginning, the equation was always cultural heritage-natural heritage of the María Luisa Park , music and gastronomy”, and work was done to “have a representation of what Seville is and what our culture is and open that window to the world”.
To complete the idea, he contacted the Robles Group, the historic Sevillian restaurant firm, about which Esteban points out that “it is a benchmark brand in Seville”, and it complied with the premise of giving “a vision of gastronomy totally different from what that usually take place at festivals”.
Gastronomy with modern touches
That is to say, a hamburger could be counted on as an easy product to eat before a concert, “but we tried to make it a premium hamburger, although it can also be eaten à la carte with a table and a tablecloth” and the merger proposed in its day was already It has been running for three years.
To demonstrate the theory, this Thursday a dinner was held with a group of guests who were able to see without intermediaries how everything is approached from the ‘Restaurant 1929’, located halfway between the concert stage and the María Luisa park, where A menu designed to highlight various concepts of Sevillian gastronomy was proposed, but with a touch of a certain modernity.
Namely: Pickled XL mussel, imperial anchovy toast, Foie micuit al Pedro Jiménez, red fruits and their toasts, prawn and smoked salmon salad, scrambled eggs with truffled potatoes, vegetable dumplings and curried chicken with crispy crust or duck ingot , payoyo cheese parmentier and pear chutney, completed with a selection of pastries.
The business supervisor of Grupo Robles, Jesús Robles, remembers that the first edition was not easy, “since Javier Esteban came to our help to be able to cover all the needs that the festival demanded, and based on effort and the logistics that we have , which is not small, we have been able to organize and adapt to what the public demanded”.
Idea that crosses borders
Thus, apart from the food outlets distributed throughout the venue, the jewel in the crown is ‘1929’, which responds to the idea of the Icónica management to “personalize one of the points of sale”, which was raised as a tribute to the Expo on 29, to offer “high level gastronomy, where you can enjoy these views, you can also listen to the concert and at the end you can have a very pleasant time”.
“The square itself already gives you an image, and the fact of saying that we are in a unique festival in Europe and in the world, gives you a high level,” Robles emphasizes.
The idea crosses borders and has an echo. Icónica Sevilla Fest has received this year the awards for Best Use of Technology and Best Live Performance 2022 from the Iberian Festival Awards, after the Festival received in its first edition the awards for Best Festival of the Iberian Peninsula 2021 and Best New Festival 2021. EFE