There are barely 225 residents who are registered in the small town of Bulbuente. One hour west of Zaragoza and nestled in the heart of the Tarazona and El Moncayo region, Bulbuente vibrates economically to the beat of the vineyard and olive grove.
The first, dedicated for the most part to make wines in the DO Campo de Borja. The latter, with a predominance of the empeltre variety, end up converting their fruit into oils protected by the DO Aceites del Moncayo.
and in that it is consecrated the Martínez Flores family 32 years ago, when he set up the Oliambel mill on the Agreda-Soria 122 highway and it is also here that they have turned a roadside restaurant into one of the hottest gastronomic spots in Zaragoza at the expense of its star ingredient: lamb from Aragón.
Converted into a fundamental crossing point on the road that connects Aragon with Navarra, La Rioja and Castilla y LeónBulbuente has been erected at a crossroads where the big stop sign is produced in its wood oven.
Raised at the same time as the mill, the Martínez Flores —today with the second generation in charge— they also opened the Mesón del Aceitean almost mandatory inn for truckers, farmers, winegrowers and, for a few months, also profiles foodies.
Claim? Win the award for the Best Traditional Style Roasted Veal of Aragon. Since then, this two-lane highway is no longer just the usual truck pilgrimage. Unseen diners also drop by here, attracted by the lure of the roast lamb and the wood-fired oven.
Maika Martínez Flores tells it, who runs the family business together with her sister Anabel, who in a duplicity causes one to be more in the restaurant and the other in the oil mill. In between, Eduardo Led, who works here as a cook and who is honest when it comes to making a good roast lamb: “the important thing is not to waste the raw material.”
However, there must be something else to understand how a restaurant that served about 100 meals on the weekend now has Saturdays and Sundays full. “Now we give up to 170 services per shift“, crazy, as Eduardo himself explains.
And all the blame falls on the lamb from Aragon, which they have always pampered in the wood oven. “Yes, the oven has always been there. When we set up the restaurant, it was already clear to us that we had to have a wood-fired oven,” Maica clarifies almost at the foot of the fire.
The pilgrimage of lamb from Aragon
Nothing has changed or not in the form. What has changed is that now the Mesón del Aceite is the repercussion of the prize. “People come from Zaragoza, from other parts of Aragon, too people come from Navarra and Soria, or many Catalans who are passing through“, assures Eduardo, who gives part of this merit to cooking and believes that “the wood-fired oven is very appealing”.
And so it should be. On a powerful day, they are more than 100 portions of lamb those that come out of here and quantify it. “We sell 200% more lamb than before,” they point out about a preparation that Led synthesizes. “It’s time, a couple of hours, and give him love,” she narrates almost in a homely tone.
Not surprisingly, the roast lamb was —and is— a flagship of Aragonese cuisine. “It is eaten at all weddings, but it is also a dish that has always been made in the houses or that in the patron saint festivities the town’s bread oven was used to roast it”, he comments.
A reality that, in this roadside restaurant, has also meant raise the average ticket considerably and he has done it organically. “We had a weekend menu, which we maintain, and it was what people always asked for,” says Eduardo. “Now we also give a lot of cards, they are more or less 50-50”, he quantifies.
The transfer to the accounts does not fail: before the average ticket was 20 euros, now it reaches 50 euros. “People have also realized that we offer something else because there is also wine, foie, carpaccios, salads…”, she lists.
And all this started through a so traditional recipe like the roast lamb, capable of making more diners make a pilgrimage to the halls of the Mesón del Aceite on a Saturday than the inhabitants of Bulbuente.
Images | Jaime de las Heras / Meson del Aceite
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