Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/724773
f a l l 2 0 1 6 | 5 7 Felix Meana cites the 'incredible versatil- ity' of Rías Baixas Albariño as the reason it should be one of the best food pairing wines in the world. At Asheville, North Carolina restaurant Cúrate, Chef Katie Button, who has trained under Spanish culinary masters Ferran Adriá and José Andrés, turns to Rías Baixas Albariño to perfect her Almejas al Albariño. One of the country's most dynamic and engaging culinary couples, the husband-wife team of Katie Button and Felix Meana, owners of Asheville, North Carolina's Cúrate, are masters of small-plate cuisine. Fitting, as they both learned the concept of tapas from two of the greatest ambassadors of Spain's signature gastronomic style: Ferran Adrià and José Andrés. For Chef Katie, a child of the South with a Master's de- gree in chemistry and no formal culinary training, opening Cúrate in 2011 was the culmination of a lifelong love affair with food, which started during trips from her hometown of Conway, SC, to eat at Asheville's many great restaurants. "I fell in love with the atmosphere here," says Katie, who got her professional start in food working for Andrés at Café Atlántico in Washington, D.C., where she and Felix met. "So when we decided to open our own place, Asheville was the obvious choice, and small plates had to be the concept be- cause I just love how they invite conversation at the table." Felix, who runs the service and wine program for their burgeoning Heirloom Hospitality empire—they also own another Asheville hotspot, Nightbell, which focuses on regional Appalachian small-plates cuisine—actually hails from Roses, the tiny Catalan village that was home to Adrià and partner Juli Soler's El Bulli, arguably the world's most important restaurant while open (it shuttered in 2011). After meeting Chef Andrés through Adrià and being of- fered a job in Washington with Andrés' ThinkFoodGroup, Felix started a bicontinental life that included working for both chefs before he eventually moved stateside full-time to help implement Andrés's growing stable of restaurants. Dur- ing this time, he met and fell in love with Katie and suggest- ed she accompany him back to El Bulli to stage (restaurant industry terminology for interning), which she did. Their experience working for both Adrià and Andrés helped build a foundation of excellence that carries over to both Cúrate and Nightbell. Their exposure to Spanish wine also helped cement the concept for Cúrate's 100 percent Spanish wine list, which features 40 wines by the glass. While their collective wine lists have a global focus, when Katie and Felix sat down with The Clever Root to talk about which menu items work best with which wines, they inter- estingly picked a Spanish white wine, not red (which Spain produces much more of), to pair with their chosen dishes. The region? Spain's verdant northwest corner of Galicia, home to the winemaking region of Rías Baixas. The varietal? Albariño. The reason? "Its incredible versatility," says Felix. SPANISH ALBARIÑO INSPIRES THE PALATES OF CHEFS FROM COAST-TO-COAST by David Ransom