Damasqueros has been open about 12 years and serves only a tasting menu. They do offer wine pairings with 2 levels of choice. We bought our own bottles of wine but I did see the pours for other tables and they looked fairly slight. The 10 small tables in the room are draped with a shorter brown cloths over a longer ecru one with beige embossed napkins. The light leather benches that are set along one wall are interesting in that they are individual for each table instead of being one long bench. The wood walls go with the partial wood ceiling and one wall that has wood cubes to store wine. One wall is glass with a door to the street however that is not how you enter or exit. The entrance brings you first into a long light bar. A variety of music played in the background. Pacing was good and portion control was on the generous side. Service was friendly and helpful with fairly good English.
Bread service was a housemade white bread served with oil from Granada. The oil was quite fruity and the bread dense without a really crispy crust.
An appetizer started the tasting. A croquette was served with a white garlic sauce. It was nicely crisp on the outside with a fun creamy filling, but I never could figure out what they said it was inside it. It was good, regardless.
Foie micuit, sweet potato and white chocolate was the first course. A cube of foie gras terrine had crunchy things on one side and yellow fat on another. A couple peppers were on the plate which were fairly mild in heat. Some croutons and the stiff white chocolate added texture to the plate. This was a great combination of tastes and textures – really good.
Onion soup contained Motril shrimps from Madrid and spearmint. Some raw bits of shrimp were in the broth along with the cooked shrimp that was in the bowl on presentation. The thickened broth had hints of orange and was full of flavor. Tasty bits of goodness inside this one made it a winner.
Wild sea bass was plated with pumpkin, cous cous and red pesto. The pumpkin was in cubes as well as a purée. The red pesto was on top of the moist fish and was like red crumbles. The cous cous was dry and a bit tough but did add a texture. This one was good but not great.
Local lamb pastilla, purple potato and seasonal mushrooms was the main course. The local lamb was wrapped in a thin crisp phyllo pastry and topped with crisp slices of potato and placed on a demi sauce. The small dots on the plate were apple cream that were sweet and mixed well with the lamb. A lot of different mushrooms were in oil and served room temperature. It was garnished with a tiny radish that was too hard to eat. The tender lamb was great and fun mixed with the crisp wrapper. The well reduced sauce had tons of flavor to make this an excellent plate.
Porridge, dry grapes and vanilla was what they called the dessert. The custard was bruleéd on the top and stiffer than a standard creme brulee. The ice cream was coffee flavored and placed on some syrupy raisins. It was a total sweet fix filled with different textures and tastes that all blended well.
A final treat was candy from Granada. It looked like a round churro, fried and coated in sugar but they were doughy inside. Alongside was a roll of dark chocolate with almonds. It was good.
