FOOD & DR INK
considered. “We make paella in the way they make it in Valencia: it’s not a holiday paella,” Mark explains. “Basically, you have it in a little tin – the idea is to have a thin layer of rice, and you want the rice to stick to the bottom. Where it sticks with the stock is where you get all the flavour. It’s called socarrat.” It’s this sort of detail, this passion for flavour and ingredients, that comes across in every bite of Mercado Central’s food, or snippet of conversation with the co-owners. “He’s really done his homework,” Mark says of Dani’s seemingly limitless knowledge of Spanish foodstuffs, gently teasing his business partner. “And one ingredient or another might run out at some point, but we’ll have it until we don’t. And we’re so seasonal – take the salad – each month we have it with different produce, say, blood oranges because they’re only around for a month or so.” The perfect way to demonstrate the attention to detail is by describing the process involved in Mercado Central’s neat tortilla: “Most people will have a tortilla on holiday, and it’s not done right – it’s set in the middle,” Mark begins. “The way
“You’ve got to feel at home – that’s what we’re here for”
restaurant,” Mark says. “We try to have nice, informal service but we mainly want people to come here, eat some good food and have a laugh – we’re not pretentious. It’s got to be informal, it’s got to be fun: we have people who come here and sit for five hours to have lunch. You’ve got to feel at home – that’s what we’re here for. The food’s got to have integrity, but it’s got to be fun as well.” Though it has continued to enjoy success, the past few months have been extremely tough for the hospitality industry, and Mercado Central did not go unscathed. The restaurant was closed for a full five months, utilising the government’s furlough scheme to keep its employees on the books and reopening to offer the Eat Out to Help Out scheme
it’s supposed to be in northern Spain is where it’s loose in the middle – creamy inside, but cooked enough. And to do that, you have to find the best eggs. We get special eggs from Stow-on-the-Wold, laid by chickens called Arlington Whites. We agreed we could only do this tortilla in England if we found the right eggs, otherwise we wouldn’t do it.” Their chefs then confit onions for hours until they’re dramatically reduced in quantity, then fry potato crisps – homemade, of course – before mixing the crisps, onions and eggs together, and combining the tortilla from there. It’s a labour of love – like everything that comes out of Mercado Central’s kitchen. “I think for Cambridge we’re quite different: we’re much more like a London
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C A M B S E D I T I O N . C O . U K
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