Asked by a friend on Whats App about El Capricho, it wouldn’t do it justice to text.

I have known about Jose Gordon’s efforts for years and friends recommended I visit his farm to try his Oxen. But it is for meat lovers and also wine lovers seeking what they call the ultimate steak experience, and it is truly an experience.

El Capricho didn’t start out as a beef restaurant and the name Bodega comes more from the wine making and refers to the cellars mostly buried in the hillside around the restaurant. At first it was hard to grasp when we were told “you eat underground” a strange concept for any restaurant in the middle of the Spanish countryside.

Located in Jiménez de Jamuz (León), restaurant El Capricho is world famous for its world-class beef but also for intense passion for wine and the hard obsessive work by José Gordón, who selects his weekly kill from his pick from 400 oxen, and he also makes wine and at the same time runs the restaurant carving steaks in his spare time…no doubt a work-a-holic.

Arriving to El Capricho the restaurant was closed for dinner and it was a rainy wet day and windy, not a nice day at all. I had the sense I am was a place where cowboys once lived, and today it’s focussed on wine and tourism. You can find some other things to do yet its mostly focused on a single purpose of enjoying the ribeye and some local pottery at Alfar Museo.

Jiménez de Jamuz is small and we were completely lost, grey skies and the rain was starting to pour from the dark clouds. It was off season and it felt like a deserted ghost town, and people there rarely speak English, not a single word except a few El Capricho employees. We thought we could have been anywhere but we were at El Capricho…….once we drove up to a white Land Rover covered in mud and saw over sized sign at the entrance of El Capricho we knew we were in the right place….we tried to communicate from the car window and the answer we received was “no English”…. ignoring them we drove around what seemed to the the backside of the restaurant on a wet dirt road with no one in sight….bumpy, wet clay.

Any visit to El Capricho requires two days, and one day to get there and one day to see the animals and tour the farm, an experience unto itself. Outside what appeared to be the restaurant courtyard and it was there were a few hanger oners sitting in the rain, cigarettes in between their fingers they didn’t look like clients at all.

After realizing the road was just a wet rocky dead-end we turned around driving back down the road tires bumping on rocks strewn on the road and this time we turned right closer to these weird looking cave like structures, we were right in front of them now driving past what looked like closed doors to caves and they were.

Imagine: we encountered the presence of two locals “old guys”…..older than us…. local farmers yet it crossed my mind these were crypts and these guys were the crypt keepers guardians of these caves where people are buried and their bones lay to rest but I was wrong!

In fact these caves are cellars where locals maintain wine stocks and you can imagine the picture below was taken the following day when the sun was shinning and at dusk in the rain was splattering it is a little spooky – it felt like what was a deserted cowboy town without the saloons.

It is obvious the time to visit El Capricho is in the spring or summer when sitting outside is a part of the experience or go off season like we did. Below is what you should expect when you arrive and the parking lot would likely be filled with cars.

The next day we arrived before lunch for what was a joyful experience riding in the back of a Land Rover through the muddy roads and through the Oxen pens – I recommend visiting the area during the dry season to avoid destroying your shoes like I did. The Oxen look happy and their are numerous species from all over, and the theme is horns!….and Steaks!…not much more.

Getting to El Capricho is easy if you drive a car, or you have a driver it is easy. We used Luis a local who arranged to take out car and get it to our hotel: +34 609 41 72 05. The closest city is León and its a charming town with decent accommodation: https://paradores.es/en/parador-de-leon and this is an amazing building.

We arrived at the airport of León and were forced to travel to the train station to pick up a rental car. Thats easy given the airport isn’t far away and getting to El Capricho is super easy. Located in Jiménez de Jamuz, a small rural town with 800 inhabitants there isn’t much to speak of except El Capricho.

We slept at the lodging of El Capricho Hospedaje Doña Elvira and if you are as disorganized as we are use the map below to find it.

Finally, we realized it was the main road and made ourselves there and turned right and quickly saw the sign to our a little hospedaje. The accommodation of El Capricho is very close to the restaurant and you are minutes away on C. Carretera.

If you travel there be sure to stay nearby as I did at Hospedaje Doña Elvira: https://hospedajedonaelvira.com, a small house owned by El Capricho nearby. Driving on the C. Carretera before you turn right into El Capricho you travel 200 meters and turn right onto a small street (C. los Herreros) and you are there. The building is a local fit Spanish cafe, and the town is quiet and quaint, and from the outside it looks ordinary but inside its very pleasant and well renovated and decorated – room 5 was where I slept.

The one thing about El Capricho is their communication was excellent and between email confirmations and the final moments when we arrived it was mostly on Whats App and Fatima was responsible for our comfort at the Elvira.

The house itself is quite amazing and the facility is well organized with staff who communicate with you on Whats app and provide an access code. Inside is a lovely local chic atmosphere with a small kitchen and dinning for breakfast, and a seating area for guests. The rooms are practical and easy going well equipped and clean.

Hospedaje Doña Elvira, “this is Fátima, from Hospedaje Doña Elvira we will be at the reception till 15.00; if you arrive after 15.00, here are the instructions to enter the hotel. You must key in the code # at the main door, and, at the reception desk, I will leave an envelope with your name and the room number; inside you will find the keys”

These cards open the main door too. Check in is from 14:00. If you need to leave your luggage at the hotel before 14.00, you could come from 12.00. Please, message to me before, so I will wait for you. The Wi-Fi code is el Capricho, the network is El Capricho. Once you are at the hotel, if you need to contact us urgently, please, don’t write an email; you can contact this number 
+34 648 945 997.

If we don’t meet each other at the check-in, I will see you at the breakfast. It’s from 8:00 to 10.30; if you need to anticipate your breakfast, please let me know, to leave you something already prepared in the early morning. Please, confirm you have received this message, so I know you have all the necessary instructions to enter without any problem. 

Dinner: I spoke with the Bodega, and the restaurant of choice named: https://lascubasgrill.com/carta/

Alternatively located in the same village as El Capricho is a restaurant called Casa Aniceto: https://casaaniceto.com and they I recommend tasting the cachopos, it’s like cordon bleu. They have won national competitions with this dish they accept reservations, but it is a big restaurant so walking in is easy to do. www.https://casaaniceto.com/ …weird foods go on there….also, in La Bañeza the same city where Las Cubas Grill is located there’s a place called Cafetería Noche y Día. They don’t take reservations also, but if you want to have a hamburger or a sandwich and they have ox burgers from El Capricho meat available there.

The restaurant for dinner finally is La Peseta in Astorga has been reserved for (2) persons and they open at 20h30: https://restaurantelapeseta.com/

What is less known about El Capricho is that it all began with a wine cellar founded by his grandfather, Segundo Gordón, and first there was the wine, then the food.

Segundo planted vines on the poorest land in the village and his son José, who has always made sure to have a wide range of wines to pair with his beef and has preserved the underground cellars where his grandfather made wine, was saddened by the neglect he saw in many of these vineyards.

The flagship wine is El Chano €26 is fermented in stainless steel and 5,000-litre wooden vats and aged in French oak for 12 months. About 50% is Mencía, plus 25-30% Alicante and smaller amounts of Prieto Picudo and Palomino. There is also a single-varietal Prieto Picudo called La Perla €49, no more than 1,000 bottles. It’s elegant, spicy and complex, with a careful, limited extraction that seems entirely appropriate for this variety.

Valdecedín €85, is a single-vineyard red with generous clay soils mixed with quartzite and other minerals. Production has increased with the recovery of the vineyard. It is mainly Mencía, with some Alicante Bouschet and Prieto Picudo and has more depth and structure here, with a pronounced earthy character and fine texture.

The facilities are mostly caves and yes El Capricho is like a western movie, its simple and ordinary in a physical sense yet there is Jose and his Oxen. When you enter the restaurant, you literally go underground and there is a atmosphere which is cozy and you don’t feel like you’re in a cave, but you realize that you are contained in a physical space.

Entering the restaurant it was like entering a cross between a ranch and restaurant, it was early and the staff were organizing themselves. The restaurant itself sits inside one of the bodegas, and the setting is mostly underground, all carved into the clay ground once used to store wines are now hosting guests. You can see the walls are blackened by a patina, and after time it oxidizes and changes color. Actually during the farm visit which is a must, we were shown the new extension underground a new construction carved out of the hard clay of Jiménez.

You enter through the porch where there are tables and benches and its a little unassuming until a glass wall reveals the kitchen behind as a beef theatre. Steaks are cut and wait for tables to enjoy the basic cut which is ribeye. But some would argue thats not the best delicacy at El Capricho and his Cecina aged for several years is arguably close in its appeal to any other meat. Thin slivers of Cecina – the dry-aged ox hang in the underground chamber cut paper thin, it has a deep meaty flavour. The meal started with a chance to sample Gordon’s seven-year cured Cecina de Buey ox leg, some call it an umami bomb, and it was!

The process for ageing insulting the meat is unique and they also freeze meat using minus temperatures up to 80°C blast chilling to bring the meat frozen without the formation of water crystals.

The ribeye is their work of art although we tried the tenderloin as well, these Oxen are 8 years old and the animals fat is yellow and the beef is slightly soft, even a little mushy to eating is rare is not ideal from my perspective. However, it could be the season and time of the year but either way I recommend medium rare cooking.

When you come here, you cannot miss the tour of the farm. Otherwise don’t go! The tours are often managed by Alfredo or Miriam, and so you will have excellent hospitality and a friendly attitude. A visit to the farm is as important as a visit to the restaurant because you get a sense of the animal, and how it lives and where it lives. Most of the animals have long horns interesting the real deal cowboy style and the steaks are cowboy style they’re giant the animals are 1.5 to 2 tons so you can imagine even the shank (bone marrow) served at the table is almost half a metre in length.

Alfredo has been there for 20 years and Miriam less but they are both passionate about their work in Jimenez, the animals and rural country lifestyle. Miriam moved from the south of Italy to Spain and she describes life as quiet and it is, except for the high demand of El Capricho steaks.

Those of you who wish to go there I highly recommend booking the new facility. They are currently constructing, which is a private dining and cooking area. That’s going to be amazing and an experience of a lifetime and something I wouldn’t miss!….bravissimo to Jose and Noemi, a charming and distinguished young lady with a positive inner energy.