As a guest in anabela's kitchen - a culinary excursion with a recipe

The idea of ​​collaborating with chef friends for our recipe of the week has been floating around in my head for a while. After all, we know so many great chefs, and cooking together is always more fun than cooking alone.
The fact that you can pick up a few tricks from the pros along the way is just one of the many pleasant side effects. The curious sniffing of unfamiliar pots, the experience of getting a hands-on experience in a restaurant kitchen, the luxury of being served a recipe prepared especially for you... so many sensory impressions you won't soon forget!

For this first time, I had the pleasure of being a guest of Anabela Campos-Neves, owner and namesake of the restaurant "anabelas Kitchen" on Pestalozzistraße in Charlottenburg.

The small restaurant with its green walls and numerous picture frames has been open for five years. It seats about 25 people, and the team consists of just three people: Nico, who works as a chef in the approximately twelve-square-meter kitchen, and Anabela and her partner Marion, who serve in the front of the house.

We meet for a preliminary discussion on a Monday, the day off. Anabela serves ice-cold apple-parsnip juice, and since the door is open due to the hot weather, we're occasionally "disturbed" by neighbors who warmly welcome Anabela. It quickly becomes clear that I'm dealing with a neighborhood institution here.

When I place my notebook with the colorful cans of sardines on the counter, Anabela's eyes light up. It's as if a door to her memory opens, and she immediately begins to talk: about those days, about picnics on the beach with the family, about the sardines and, above all, the canned tuna, about her grandmother... The ice is broken. If there ever was ice to break...

"For me, vacation means 'back to the roots,' meaning: my family has to cook for me. Then I remember what it tasted like when Grandma cooked. Grandma didn't know cream, never used it. She only cooked whatever she could find at the market that day. Simple. But always fresh."

Anabela hails from Moita near Lisbon, but came to Berlin as a young woman in the 1980s ("Oh, Mother, I'll stay for maybe a week..."). For love, but also because Portugal at the time was simply too cramped for her. Accordingly, her restaurant doesn't fulfill any expectations of folklore and resolutely resists being pigeonholed as "typically Portuguese." Because, as it quickly becomes clear, she can't stand pigeonholing. Instead, she cultivates a culinary freestyle that she describes as "integration cuisine." Here, the finest ingredients from the Berlin weekly market meet a small detail she recently picked up at this Korean restaurant, a new discovery from a French friend around the corner, and memories of her grandmother's simple but always fresh cooking. The result isn't a translation of traditional recipes, but a free reinterpretation. That's the freedom Anabela takes, and that's exactly what I was curious about.

"I don't write anything down; every dish turns out different for me. I couldn't cook for someone else according to a plan. That's why I don't bake either..."

Anabela got into cooking by chance. She began her apprenticeship at the renowned Berlin restaurant "Sylter Hof." So, there was no plan, but as soon as she started, she felt her roots resonate:

"For both of my grandmothers, everything always revolved around food, the two meals a day. Both grandmothers enjoyed cooking, and they passed that on to me. For me, cooking is an emotional matter; it comes from the heart."

On the menu, depending on what Anabela finds, you'll find boudin noir, Portuguese fish soup, black sesame, fregola sarda (Sardinian pasta), and, of course, coriander! There's also a nice selection of German and Portuguese wines—although the majority of the drinks are Portuguese. Recently, she served "Sardinhas à la Brathering": sardines with vinegar and onions. The crowd loved it.

For today's collaboration, Anabela stopped by our store. She picked up mackerel in pure olive oil from Tricana (Conserveira de Lisboa), tuna fillets in Molho Cru (a slightly spicy marinade with raw spring vegetables), olive oil and tapenade from Tapada da Tojeira. This will be accompanied by two different fresh summer salads and, of course, our new wine from the Douro Valley in Portugal: Conceito branco from Rita Marquez Ferreira. She belongs to the new generation of winemakers in Portugal who are passionately transforming the market and producing excellent new wines. (You can find more information about the fantastic Conceito wines on our blog .)

These wines – as well as the many colorful canned fish and other traditional products that are being revived in new packaging – also make Anabela, an exiled Portuguese woman with a Berlin accent, enjoy her roots again.

"Now Portugal is finally opening up – you want to try everything. The wines, the people... Now, for me, going to Portugal is like a journey of discovery again."

I quickly chill the wine and then head to the heart of the restaurant: the kitchen. Anabela cooked here alone for a long time, for the last three years together with Nico, whom she hired as a backup. Two months ago, she finally switched to a different area and now serves guests with Marion.

Anabela also does the shopping herself, daily and by bike. She prepares and plans the menus together with Nico, but the chef still has the final say. Nico is from Freiburg and naturally brings a whole range of culinary influences. "You can't force him to cook Portuguese. For him, this is 'rock 'n' roll,' and the two of us together make a wonderful fusion..."

I can only agree – on this day, too, a wonderful fusion is created: the mackerel is served with a wonderfully refreshing and beautifully spicy tomato and fennel salad, to which the coriander (of course – typically Portuguese!) and lemon zest add an exciting Asian touch. The slightly spicy tuna is accompanied by a summery, light purple potato salad and black olive tapenade.

Like Anabela, I put a bit of everything from each dish into my mouth at once, chew, and then take a sip of the Conceito. This way, we can really taste whether the wine matches the food. And how it matches! Its distinct finesse and slightly salty minerality, along with its natural acidity, make it the ideal accompaniment to fish. It's a bit pricey, but we didn't spend much on the meal. And honestly, it's definitely worth it! If you prefer something a little more affordable, the Contraste from the same winemaker is a good choice.

Ingredients for tuna with purple potato salad:

• 1.5 kilos of purple potatoes
• 100 ml chicken stock
• 5 tbsp light vinegar, e.g. white Pineau de Charentes vinegar
• 2 tbsp mustard, e.g. mustard with white wine from Leblanc
• 2 shallots
• 1 small bunch of parsley
• 1 small bunch of chives
• Salt , pepper, sugar
• Lemon zest and lemon juice
• olive oil
• 1 - 2 cans of Santa Catarina tuna with Molho Cru (spicy marinade made from spring vegetables)
• Black olive paste

• 400g fennel
• 500g colorful tomatoes
• 2 red onions
• 1 bunch of basil
• fresh coriander
• Parsley
• light vinegar, e.g. vinegar from white Pineau de Charentes
• olive oil
• Sugar
• Salt
• Lemon juice and lemon zest
• 1 - 2 cans of mackerel in pure olive oil, from Tricana (or in the spicy version from Pinhais )

Preparation:
Cut the fennel into thin slices using a mandolin. Alternatively, you can use a grater, an asparagus peeler, or a sharp knife. The main thing is to get the strips nice and fine.
Blanch the tomatoes, peel them, quarter them, and remove the seeds. Slice the onion into thin rings.
Mix vinegar, oil, sugar, salt and lemon juice to make a marinade, pour it over the fennel and onion and let it sit together for half an hour.
Now add the tomato quarters. Roughly chop the basil and coriander, add them, and sprinkle with lemon zest and finally the chopped parsley. Serve and garnish with romaine lettuce hearts. Then, on the plate, drizzle with a good olive oil.

Our wine recommendation: The Conceito branco 2013, a remarkably fine and minerally wine reminiscent of the great Chablis Grand Crus. With its wonderful smoothness, slightly salty character, and natural acidity, this wine is the ideal accompaniment to fish and shellfish. It also pairs well with risotto and white meat.

Bon appétit, or bom proveito!

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anabela's Kitchen
Pestalozzistrasse 3
10625 Berlin
Telephone: 030 - 28 70 12 24
www.anabelas-kitchen.de
EC card payment possible

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If you prefer watching instead of reading, you can watch a short video from the kitchen here: