At Maison DEHESA, bitterness takes the plural. We work the bitter notes, their intensity as much as their length on the palate, in the conviction that a flavour long taken for a flaw gives a dish its relief and its poise.
A flavour to be tamed
Bitterness is the only flavour a child refuses by instinct: it once signalled a poisonous plant. The palate then tames it, slowly, the way one learns a language. Italy made a grammar of it, from ristretto to bitter oranges; contemporary cuisine restores it to favour, in braised chicory as in cocoa.
Well handled, it never dominates. It holds sweetness at a distance and lengthens the iodine notes, provided it is measured with the precision of a seasoning.
The bottarga spectrum
Our grey mullet bottarga gives the finest demonstration of it. The roe sacs, taken from females caught at maturity, are salted with restraint, then slowly aged. Depending on the length of this ageing, the bitterness travels its full range.
1 month
The Signature
Creamy, almost melting. Its bitterness stays gentle, tinged with sweetness, over notes of sea urchin and minerality.
2 months
The King Size
The texture of a pâte de fruit. Bitterness and iodine find their balance here, long on the palate.
3 months
The Classic
Dry and dense, made for the grater. The bitterness asserts itself, clean and persistent.
The hand completes what time begins
Choosing an ageing is not enough to cover the whole spectrum. The quality of the bottarga sets its promise; the slicing and the oxidation time decide its expression. The thickness of the slice governs the attack of the bitterness, the minutes spent in the open air alter its length. From one and the same bottarga, the hand thus draws several bitter notes.
The tutorial
Do you know how to savour bottarga?
Slicing and the moment of tasting, explained in a few minutes.
Other bitter notes of the Maison
The natural green olive, from the old olive trees of the Córdoba desert, keeps its vegetal bitterness intact: it is neither cooked nor pasteurised. The organic black lemon, dried then fermented, carries the bitterness of the citrus towards balsamic notes reminiscent of our aged P.X. vinegar. The XXL Cantabrian anchovy, aged for at least six months and up to two years, gains with time a fine bitterness that lengthens the salt on the palate.
In the chefs’ kitchens
- Sylvestre Wahid matches the King Size bottarga with octopus and white asparagus, then finishes the dish with a black lemon powder.
- Bruno Verjus grates black mandarin “like a salt” over peas.
- Olivier Elzer pairs the Signature bottarga with spiny lobster and artichoke.
- Yoshiaki Ito brings together the Classic bottarga, cauliflower and brown shrimp.