After popular local cuisine at Orangier and tapas revisited in gastronomic mode at Ena by Carles Abellan, here is a more gastronomic restaurant: San Fernando.

Like the Ena, it is one of the restaurants of the Alfonso XIII hotel, one of the most renowned in the country, but if the first one is more “casual dining”, this one represents the fine dining offer of the hotel.

• The concept of San Fernando in Seville
• The setting of San Fernando in Seville
• The menu of San Fernando in Seville
• The dishes at San Fernando in Seville
• The service at San Fernando in Seville
• Bottom line on San Fernando in Seville

The concept

An “epicurean experience” (sic) resulting from the fusion of traditional and contemporary cuisines.

The setting of San Fernando

The restaurant is located in the Alfonso XIII Hotel.

After entering the luxurious lobby…

You will find the restaurant in a gallery on your left.

It inspires me different feelings…there is this majestic side that strikes at first sight, you almost think you are in a cathedral.

Then comes precisely this lack of warmth, the impression of being simply settled in a corridor (which is the case by the way), impression which is reinforced even more when the room is almost empty.

Positive point: the customers are not packed at all and you can have a conversation. On the negative side, it can seem sad and solemn when the room is not filled.

I also fear, but do not have the confirmation, that the room resonates and becomes very noisy when it is full.

The menu of San Fernando.

Starters, salads and soups.

Meat and fish.

Desserts

The menu of the moment

The dinner and the dishes

Once installed, two bottles of water are already waiting for me: still or sparkling. It’s up to me to choose, but at least the service is immediate.

I am brought the menu and to my surprise it is in French.

As it should be in Spain, I am brought olive oil and a selection of different kinds of bread that I will choose as I wish.

Once my order is placed, I am brought an appetizer. Potato and seafood salad…

I can feel the taste the potato and the fruit as a garnish. The seafood must have been incorporated into it, I can feel it vaguely but if I hadn’t been told what they were I would have said it had a vague indefinable taste. Not bad but indefinable.

It’s fresh, easily eatable (after all it’s the principle of the amuse bouche) but it’s not exceptional in taste either.

It is 8:30 pm and there are only two tables. Well, for Spain it is quite early.

In the meantime, the staff comes to offer me bread again and helps me to choose some new kinds.

Then comes the starter: oxtail ravioli, cauliflower purée, spinach and truffle.

Visually speaking it looks better than the photo. That said, the sauce is too liquid (or the waitress has a shaky hand) and it all arrives totally “blown up” on the plate at my table.

The purée is creamy but bland, which I will recover with a lot of salt and pepper.

The ravioli alone has mouthfeel and flavor but less than I expected.

And when you take the whole thing together with the sauce it is the wine sauce that wins and gives the essential taste of the dish. It gives body but at the expense of the delicacy of the ravioli.

Next: Iberian ham consommé, low-cooked egg, candied mushrooms and tratufata (truffle sauce).

I should have taken the picture of the ingredients before they added the consommé on top because it immediately looks less good considering its color.

The consommé is quite good but it lacks depth in the mouth and punch.

Not to say that I can make the same at home or that we’re not far from some of the things you can find in a vacuum pack, but it’s not something to wake up for at night for either.

It’s time for the main course: a rack of lamb in a herb crust, caviar of candied eggplant.

This is really well presented.

The meat is melting and perfectly seasoned. The same goes for eggplant caviar. Finally the promise starts to be kept! A real treat, I feel like the meal is just beginning.

Bad luck for me, there is only the dessert left. At the back of the room a piano starts to play. It is 9:40 pm. It fits well with the setting and somehow it was missing.

I inquire about the “osmotized” fruit with tangerine sorbet…and go with that choice.

In short, it’s fruit with sorbet. A priori it’s a bit disappointing considering the fancy name, but to the taste the balance between fruits and an ice cream with different acidities is totally erased and the whole very balanced.

But in the end you expect something else. I know that the height of sophistication is simplicity, but here for fine dining, I am a bit disappointed.

The service

Simply perfect if you remove the sauce from the ravioli that was too much in the plate before arriving at my table.

The staff is exquisitely friendly without being obsequious in the least. The service is fast but not too much, you eat at your own pace without waiting.

Bottom line on the San Fernando

For fine dining I find that the whole lacks a bit of finesse. The presentation can sometimes be improved, the dishes are too neutral and lack either pep or finesse.

And neither the quality of the service nor the setting is enough to compensate.

Not that it wasn’t good, far from it really, but the result falls short of the implied promise.

If the experience is good, at 103€ (with 2 glasses of wine) for one person the experience/price ratio leaves something to be desired.

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