Los Calaos de Briones is a restaurant where you can eat well, without rushing, and enjoy the excellent products that La Rioja offers.
The Restaurant
The kitchen is run by Nuria Couto, a chef trained at the Mendizorrotza School of Hospitality in Vitoria. Nuria is committed to quality cuisine based on excellent raw materials. She handles seasonal products like no one else, with preparations made with care and skill, which preserve their characteristics and particularities.
The restaurant focuses on traditional Riojan dishes prepared in a contemporary way. Vegetables are treated excellently and in winter it is possible to taste succulent spoon dishes typical of this region.
As main dishes we find a wide range of meats and fish, in addition to the usual special products off the menu. Roast lamb and suckling pig are one of the specialties of this house, where the typical lamb chops could not be missing either.
The gastronomic offer is completed by an extraordinary selection of homemade desserts, among which the goxua or the cheesecake with raspberry stand out.
As expected, the restaurant has an excellent wine cellar that houses a generous range of Rioja wines as well as a wide selection of wines from other denominations of origin.
Rioja cuisine
Seasonal produce and simplicity
Rioja cuisine stands out for the simplicity of its dishes and the high quality of its ingredients. Great-tasting cuisine based on seasonal produce from its fertile gardens: legumes, vegetables and garden produce, as well as farmed and game meats and sausages.
As it could not be otherwise, Rioja wine is the best accompaniment to taste a typical Rioja menu.
Our salons
Eating in an old 17th century wine cellar is only possible in Briones
When Nuria and Gerardo came up with this project, they dreamed of a special place. A different space with its own identity. A place with soul that would remain outside the fashions and trends of the moment.
Briones, the small town in La Rioja where they both spent their childhood, was the chosen place and why not do it in the cellar – calao according to the local name – of a traditional winery? Could there be anything more typical in this land of great wines?
Said and done, once the winery was located in the centre of the town and after an arduous rehabilitation project that lasted several months, the restaurant Los Calaos de Briones opened its doors to the public at the end of 2004.
The restaurant Los Calaos de Briones has two dining rooms fitted out in two Calaos of an old family winery located in the centre of the town.
The first of them, three and a half metres wide by forty metres deep, serves as the main dining room. It is directly connected to the kitchen and can seat fifty people.
The second dining room, dug directly into the rock at a depth of six metres from street level, can seat thirty-five people and is accessed via a stone staircase.
Both dining rooms have comfortable, classic furniture. Stage lighting, ashlar stone and vaulted ceilings give them a truly special atmosphere.
Do you know what a “calao” or “calado” is?
A “calado” is an underground cave with a high ambient humidity and constant temperature all year round that is used to age and mature wines.
In many towns in La Rioja it is common to find “calados” / “calaos” located under private homes. They are authentic traditional wine cellars used by families to make and preserve their own wine.
Briones
Briones, a walk through history, art and traditions
