Alongside Paco Morales will be gourmet food expert and photographer Miriam García, at an event presented by Javier Rosón, Casa Árabe’s coordinator in the Andalusian city of Cordoba. Throughout its 320 pages, this work by Paco Morales not only includes 65 recipes which recreate Spanish-Muslim cuisine from a contemporary perspective. It also provides a detailed historical contextualization of what and how people ate during that era, as well as dozens of basic techniques photographed step-by-step. Since his restaurant opened in 2016, Paco Morales has been committed to making Noor a “cultural project” that reinterprets and pays homage to a crucial period in the history of Spain: the era of Al-Andalus. Today, Noor has become a creative space for research and development that offers “a stroll through the monumental cuisine of Arab Cordoba” with a modern touch. His efforts have been rewarded with two Michelin stars.

It is through this book that the chef has decided to celebrate his success, including 314 culinary creations, 75 photographed step-by-step, with 65 recipes and dozens of cooking techniques, all of them the result of painstaking work to bring back and update the foods and ways people ate in Al-Andalus during the tenth century, with the splendorous Caliphate of Cordoba; and then during its fragmentation into the Taifa Kingdoms in the eleventh; as well as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with the hegemony of the Almoravid and Almohad empires. The book also includes an educational glossary, a detailed historical and culinary contextual description of what cooks had in their pantries, the foods created in kitchens and the meals served on the dining tables of the great houses during that era. It is rounded off with cultural and spiritual notions so that readers can delve even deeper into the whole world surrounding Spanish-Muslim cooking and gourmet cuisine.

The book was produced with the editorial guidance of Javi Antoja de la Rosa and contains 140 images authored by Mikel Ponce, with historical consultation by Rosa Tovar and Lúa Monasterio.

Paco Morales 

Born in the Cordoba neighborhood of Cañero into a family devoted to the catering trade (his parents run the Asador de Nati restaurant), Morales was already helping out with the family business as a teenager. Shortly after, he began to study cooking at Cordoba’s School of Catering, where he drew attention because of his methodical, disciplined personality and his exemplary behavior. When he was just over 20 years old, he made his debut at the orders of Andoni Luis Aduriz at Mugaritz** (Rentería). At 23, he moved to Cala Montjoi (Girona) to lead the warm first dish team at elBulli. This was followed by periods of time in Madrid and Bocairente (Valencia), where he earned his first Michelin star.

A chemist and English-Spanish technical translator by training, she is a gourmet cuisine expert and self-taught photographer by passion, providing culinary content, texts and photographs for food brands and writing about cooking and cuisine for various media, including “El Comidista” and “Bon Viveur,” as well as publishing her own recipe book on her website “El invitado de invierno” (The Winter Guest). She also teaches themed cooking classes at Alambique Madrid and works as a kitchen stylist for advertisers. She considers herself “a beginner at everything and an expert on nothing.”

Noor opened its doors for the first time on March 17, 2016 with the goal of becoming a gastrocultural project in which the cuisine of the Al-Andalus era would be reinterpreted and paid tribute to. This has earned it two Michelin stars in just over three years. Since October 2019, it has had a “little brother,” which is also located in Cordoba: El Bar de Paco Morales.