FOOD & DR INK
A taste of S p ain CHARLOTTE GRIFFITHS HEADS TO MERCADO CENTRAL TO SEE HOW THE RESTAURANT IS BRINGING SPANISH CUISINE TO OUR PLATES INTERVIEW
Two of the restaurant’s management team, Mark Hughes and Daniel ‘Dani’ Grana Duran, lead me up and down the stairs in their beautiful restaurant, introducing me to their many chefs, showing me produce in the fridges, and then remembering something exciting back up two floors that they have to show off right now. Their pride and enthusiasm is evident in every step we take around the listed building. Mark runs bars in Madrid and London, while Dani is best known to Cambridge’s foodies as the man behind Pata Negra Spanish Food. His background in supplying the hospitality trade with fine foods and ingredients, honed while working in the music business and touring with bands (“a music tour that turned into a food tour”, Mark jokes about his friend), means he’s perfectly placed to locate
he old maxim is true: there are two sides to every story. Mercado Central is a restaurant that was years, even decades in the making.
Yet to Cambridge’s food fans, it seemed to appear on Green Street almost overnight, opening its doors with minimal fuss just before Christmas 2019 and immediately winning an army of supporters. It serves Spanish food with nods to the British seasons, using the finest produce money can buy from both countries. Step through the door and you’d be forgiven for thinking you were in Madrid, or London’s Soho – the pin-sharp interiors, the Spanish team’s beaming smiles as they cook in the open kitchen, or the array of fresh fish on the ice bar at weekends: it’s only the unique views of the picturesque, cobbled Green Street that root you in central Cambridge.
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