Chef Cristina Figueir fought hard to turn this restaurant into a gastronomic benchmark: for years “sparks flew” between the family that runs it
Now he has prospects of extending this place, which will soon be 108 years old, for another generation: his two daughters want to continue with the business
About ten kilometers from Benidorm, there is a town that has nothing to do with the tourist giant: La Nucia. Narrow streets, without cars and two-story houses fill its historic center, headed by the church of the Immaculate Conception. Next to the temple, it is located The Xatoa place that carries open 107 years and who has recently entered in the ‘top 5’ of the best luxury restaurants in the world, according to Tripadvisor users.
Christina Figueiraarchitect of this achievement, turned the old tapas bar into a Michelin star in 2019 and got that The Xato received a Repsol sun in 2021. “There has been a total change. It has been a path that Francisco and I chose,” he explains in an interview from the II Conference on Circular Architecture. The chef refers to Francisco Cano, her husband, head waiter and sommelier of the restaurant. He inherited the premises from his father, José Cano Cano, the “soul” of The Xato. In fact, the name comes from the nickname with which they referred to him.
Wine in bulk
In 1915Pedro Balaguer Orts and Jerónima Cano Pérez founded the Ti Pere el Tardá winery in the same place where El Xato is now. Bulk wine was sold there and the residents of La Nucia they went there to fill their jug. They transformed that warehouse into the international bar and, after the Civil War, they changed the name to National Barwhose greatest attraction were the caps that they served
With the retirement of the first owners of the tavern, the transfer that marked the history of this business took place: Belaguer and Cano’s brothers-in-law, Francisco Cano Ivorra and Vicenta Cano Pérez, began to manage the tavern in 1948 and named it after Bar El Xatoby the nickname with which they mentioned their son, José Cano Cano.
The Xato She took over the bar when her parents retired, at a time when Esperanza Fuster was already in charge of the fires, changing her hairdressing scissors for kitchen ones. As was tradition, Francisco Cano, today the voice of the restaurant, began to learn the trade at a young age. And in those years and outside the bar, Christina Figueira and her husband met. They met at the gym, where she was going to do the exercises that would help her improve her scoliosis, and where he trained. “Francisco is seven years older than me. When we started, I was 16 and he was 23. The difference was big and now I tell him: ‘You’re a cradle robber. At this time they wouldn’t have let you,'” he jokes.
Giving a hand to the mother in law in the kitchen
During the weekends, as Francisco Cano had to work with his parents at the bar, Figueira stayed with him and “he gave his mother a hand in the kitchen“. “That’s how my beginnings in the kitchen were.” Today, the chef worked in a clinic as a dental hygienist until this center closed during the pregnancy of her first daughter. She then decided to fully enter the kitchens of El Xato, until then a territory almost unique to her mother-in-law.
“The first years working together have been difficult,” confesses Cristina Figueira, who has had to fight alongside her husband for her in-laws to agree to change the type of business and against Francisco Cano himself, so that each one could find “his place” . He, in the room; she in the kitchen. “Until this balance was struck, it was tricky,” she says.
“I became aware of the new movement in the kitchen, with Ferran Adrià, foams, airs, molecular cuisine…and all of that started to get my attention. I thought: ‘Why not? apply these techniques to traditional cooking in my houseLet’s see what happens?'”, says the Michelin star. His intuition did not fail him. Now fill every night and every noon the restaurant where one day her husband, in a fit of anger, removed the bar.
His mother-in-law, Esperanza Fuster, showed him the way to traditional cuisine and, when she proposed innovations in the menu, “sparks flew”. “Over the years, you realize that working in a family business is nice, because, apart from that employment relationship, there is a more intimate relationship and there is always love,” she says. During the weeks in which the chef left Alicante to attend lectures and congresses in which to learn from the leaders of the profession, her mother-in-law took care of the two daughters of the marriage that has cast the name of The Xato to michelin guide. “Without her, I would not have been able to get to where I have. She has behaved like a second mother”, thanks Figueira.
The family business has evolved, thanks to three fundamental legs, points out Pepe Cano, Francisco’s brother: for Cristina Figueira as chef and for his “tireless spirit to value our products and flavors that previous generations left us”; by Francisco, “with all his know-how in the sommelier part” and for making clients feel that they are “at home”; and by his own Pepe, who heads the catering and event organization departmentand which is also responsible for the administration and strategy of The Xato.
“Nobody is a prophet in their own land”
The inhabitants of La Nucia have “always” eaten at The Xato, because it was next to two of the busiest places: the casino, where they went to play cards, and the church, where they went to confession. But he was famous for being the most expensive in town. “My father-in-law always bought good products. The best anchovies, the best cockles, the best mussels,” says the Michelin star.
However, when Cristina Figueira and Francisco Cano undertook the change from the broth with balls to Grilled Norway lobster tartare with medlar and passion fruit ceviche, some neighbors got off the boat. “People came, tried what we were doing and many stopped coming because they said we made a very modern kitchen“recalls the chef. “No one is a prophet in his land. We have been constantly changing our clientele, although we support the children of many who used to come to the old bar”, he indicates. If tourists come to town and ask where to eat, the opinion is unanimous: “You have to go to The XatoWhat is it the best in town“.
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Francisco Cano and Cristina Figueira They repeat as soon as they can that “clients enter and friends leave” their premises. Gastronomy lovers who come to The Xato unknowingly visit this family’s home: “My mother-in-law lives on the first floor, just above the restaurant, and we live on the second.”
The Xato, owned by a family in which, according to Cano, “I am the Michelin and Cristina, the star”, has a future. Her eldest daughter, Esperanza, already helps her parents in the restaurant room. “He finished law school last year and told us: ‘I’ve realized that you guys have been very happy and I want to continue with this business. I don’t see myself resolving lawsuits’. Right now he was second in kitchen management and he wants to relieve us” , says Figueira. The minor also points out ways: “She does tourism and is more focused on events, because we also do catering.” “We are very proud and happy that there is another generation continuing with the business,” says the chef.