Tobalá was, for years, one of those addresses that one kept with suspicion. A small place in Chamberí, without pretensions or neon, where the suadero tacos tasted as they should and the pozole didn’t need to be explained. It was opened by José Ramón Moreiras, an Oaxacan chef with half a life in Madrid, with the university students of the neighborhood in mind. But those kids brought their parents, and the parents brought their partners, and so the place filled to bursting with food and people.
One day it closed. No press releases, no goodbyes. When we asked, we were told: “We are preparing something big”. The typical phrase that sounds like an excuse… until you go and try it.
That something big is Tobalá in Los Molinos. A Mexican eatery disguised as a hacienda, with tortillas pressed on the spot, mezcals you won’t find downtown and dishes that rarely cross the Atlantic: sopes, chimichangas, molcajetes, flautas made on the spot and, above all, pozole (white, green or red, depending on the day). There is also a newly incorporated jabalí pibil and stews with meat from the Sierra de Guadarrama, certified.
And one thing you don’t see or see when José Ramón tells you about it: some of the vegetables come from a garden right next to the kitchen. “We don’t use supermarket produce. I buy cilantro from a neighbor in town,” says the chef.
José Ramón Moreiras has been at this for a while. Tobalá was not his first restaurant in Madrid. In a previous one (El Alamillo), long before opening the taqueria in Chamberí, something happened that elevated him to the category of royal chef: one night he received a call from the owner at one o’clock in the morning. The Royal Family had come in for dinner. He didn’t go. “Serve them like any other customer,” he replied. Days later, Queen Letizia appeared in the kitchen and told him: “That sauce you served me was deadly“. He tells it without epic, with naturalness. Like someone who knows that there is no need to embellish what is true.
Eating at home (if your home were in Oaxaca)
The new Tobalá is something else. A restaurant without restaurant hours, open only on weekends at noon and smelling more like home than business. The Virgin of Guadalupe welcomes you in the patio, there are cactus and ceramics, Otomí textiles in the windows and a fireplace covered with a mixture of lime and black clay, Oaxacan style. Even the team that worked in Madrid has followed the chef to the sierra. “They know I’m here. And that I cook. That’s what I want.
Moreiras is not talking about expansion or a second location. He talks about people who come back, Mexicans who cry with pozole and customers who drive an hour on the road just to eat a quesadilla. The fact that there is Sello Copil ( the seal of authenticity of the Casa Mexico Foundation), a mezcal display case, well-spun micheladas and a sunny spot in the Repsol guide is just context.
Is it still the best Mexican restaurant in Madrid?
Probably yes. Although now it is not in Madrid and the writer of these lines has not tried all the Mexican restaurants in Madrid to be sure to issue such a statement. It is in Los Molinos, at the end of a road that crosses pine forests and leaves you in front of a house where it smells of firewood, coriander and chilies. There is no digital menu or sophisticated reservation system. Just José Ramón in the kitchen, his team, a handful of tables and a bunch of recipes that look like they came out of a patio in Oaxaca. It’s not just a restaurant. It’s something even weirder: it ‘s not even a restaurant, but a house where they serve food. Which is not the same thing.