Pepa and Ramona with a plate of seasoned tomatoesCarlos Doncel-Moriano Valencia
When asked about their last names, Ramona and Pepa, mother and daughter, respond the same: “Maera.”
Neither of them is called that, but Casa Maera is such a family establishment in Seville that even the names of those who run it have changed.
Antonio García Madera - he does -, husband and father, founded this restaurant with Ramona in the León neighborhood of Triana in 1990, and as soon as you enter you sense that almost nothing has changed since then.
Neither the aesthetics, so much like a living room in any home, nor the food, based on traditional stews and other homemade dishes.
There was a time when this place had a menu, but that was decades ago and it didn't last long.
“At first we did have it, but my father got fed up and said: 'This is worthless ,
'
and he took it away,” says Pepa
.
“One day he brought ray to make it in paprika, another pijotas, another cuttlefish… And that image of telling the customer that we couldn't serve him something, he didn't like it,” she adds.
“We had the advantage that my husband's relatives were from Isla Cristina (Huelva), and they supplied us with the best fish and seafood.
He would arrive with the boxes at the restaurant, leave them on the floor and those who were sitting liked to see them and say: 'Antonio, give that lobster to me,'” Ramona remembers.
Today that philosophy of cooking what the market offers every morning continues.
“I buy mainly in Isla Cristina and Sanlúcar.
If I see scallops and I like them, I'll take them, or some good-looking roe, too.
Our menu is changed by the view,” says Pepa, currently in charge of the business.
“When a client comes, we tell them what we have done that day.
And the truth is that people really like that,” she says.
Lifelong
As is evident, the dishes prepared at Casa Maera are always seasonal.
They do not offer chanterelles in July or cucumbers in January.
“It all depends on the time we are in.
Now we serve chickpeas with mushrooms that are delicious, for example,” says Ramona.
Her daughter goes further: “We don't open at night, but when we did, we changed the menu;
"You're not going to eat some beans at 10:00 p.m."
Don't let anyone expect slate trays, fusion cuisine, splashes of mayo-kimchi, brioche or bao.
Here they cook traditional dishes, the kind a grandmother makes on a Sunday (a grandmother from Andalusia, of course, not Vietnamese).
To the classic seasoned tomato that they serve as an appetizer, they usually add choco roe a la marinera, Menudo, cabbage stew, cheek in sauce, stew of pumpkin and beans or beans with chorizo, blood sausage and Iberian rib, among many other dishes.
“Fried eggs with homemade fried tomato and prawns are a typical recipe from Sanlúcar de Barrameda that we have been making here for years,” explains Pepa.
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Precisely that fried tomato shows that at Casa Maera they cook mainly heritage recipes.
“I remember my mother doing it in a little fire that she put in the patio so that the tiles wouldn't get dirty.
That fried tomato that we serve is like the one she made in that patio,” Ramona recalls.
“She didn't leave anything down, I learned just by watching her.”
Generational change
Ramona is turning 73 but still works.
She only left the kitchen in 2021 during the year and a half that she suffered from breast cancer.
After recovering, she returned: “When I finished chemo, it was clear to me that I wanted to go back to work.
Furthermore, the doctor told me that she was doing very well.
“I never thought about retiring, this gives me life.”
Until then, Ramona had been the hands of Casa Maera, everything that came out of it had been prepared by her.
But during her leave the place had to continue operating, so she gave her daughter an ultimatum: “When I fell ill I told her: 'You have 15 days to learn how to cook our recipes.'”
A challenge that Pepa took on with great responsibility: “I felt quite worried and afraid when she told me that she had to cook alone.
She had been seeing my mother all her life, but she had never served anything of mine to the public.”
The solution: practice non-stop and make video calls with Ramona to answer some questions.
“The first critic was always my father, who was very demanding, because for him my mother was unique,” says Pepa.
Antonio died in May 2022, although that hard blow did not mean the closure of the restaurant.
“Do we and the clientele miss him a lot?
Of course.
But we had to push
ahead
,” summarizes her daughter.
When Ramona recovered from the illness, her daughter was the one who occupied the stove that she once used.
“At the beginning of my return, he didn't let me do anything.
But even so, I started peeling garlic, potatoes, then the salad... It was as if little by little I started cooking again," says the founder of the place, who today is in charge of making the rice, some simple preparations and the plated.
Ramona preparing a portion of baked swordfishCarlos Doncel-Moriano Valencia
Currently, almost all the dishes served are prepared by Pepa, who also serves diners during lunch.
Now, he prepares them following the tradition of the place, because here there are basic rules that do not change even if the generation passes: “I almost never use the pressure cooker, in very few cases.
I make a good stew over low heat for many hours,” says Ramona.
“I instilled that philosophy that cooking takes time in my daughter.
You can't take out a meal full of water, no problem: a good dish needs
chup-chup
.
They also perceive this same change at the tables.
Casa Maera opened more than three decades ago, and those customers who asked Ramona and Antonio for those prawns or that lobster are now older: today it is the children who come to this place in search of the same stews and stews that their relatives ate. : “The truth is that we see a lot of young clientele who come recommended by their parents,” says Pepa.
In a city full of franchises and gyozas, classic spooning and traditional flavors are reclaimed here.
Ramona, at 72 years old and with her work apron on, sums it up well: “When people come here they say the same thing: 'It seems like we are eating at home.'
It is very nice that they tell you that, because it is as if you were something of theirs.”
And so it is, because in each Casa Maera stew there is something about them that we all recognize as ours.
Casa Maera
: c/ José León, 17. Seville.
Tel.: 954343605.
Map
.
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