The Flavor of Memory
At Casa Teresa, Tomatoes Tell the Story
BY: James Whitman | PHOTOS: Lani Allen
The bread—a Catalan tradition called pan de cristal, or glass or crystal bread because it shatters pleasantly with every bite—is either imported from Barcelona or made to exacting standards by a local baker. Alongside it, a hand-illustrated postcard playfully walks guests through the ritual of pa amb tomàquet. “It’s so simple, it needs explaining,” García says with a laugh: A piece of ripe tomato is vigorously grated onto the bread’s crisp surface, followed by a heavy pour of southern Spanish olive oil and a pinch of coarse sea salt. The result is bright, savory, and satisfyingly crunchy—and holds its own even when served with platters of silky roasted red peppers, glistening eggplant, briny anchovies, and world-class Iberico ham.
Starting with this humble dish grounds the experience in the kind of cooking García grew up with—food made by the women in his family who created joy and nourishment from what little they had. “They were the most creative cooks I’ve ever known,” he says. “They did so much with so little” even in times of great scarcity, using the simplest of available ingredients.
Tomatoes appear again in porra antequerana, a dense, chilled Andalusian soup made with bread, garlic, green pepper, and olive oil—often topped with tuna or egg. “These are survival foods,” García says.
“They evolved to stretch ingredients, to beat the heat, to feed people well.”
“In Catalonia, we eat it all day breakfast, lunch, snack”
-Chef Rubén García
The journey starts with a tomato—split open and rubbed across bread. No sauce, no tricks. Just pulp, olive oil, and salt on a slice of crunchy bread in the style of classic Catalan pa amb tomàquet. For Chef Rubén García, who earned his reputation at the cutting edge of cuisine cooking for five years under gastromolecular legend Ferran Adrià at El Bulli and later leading José Andrés’s Minibar to two Michelin stars, the simplicity of the dish sets the tone and welcomes diners into the heart of rustic Spanish cuisine at García’s own downtown DC restaurant, Casa Teresa.
“In Catalonia, we eat it all day—breakfast, lunch, snack,” he says of pa amb tomàquet. “But if the ingredients aren’t perfect, it’s nothing.”
For García, the perfection begins with the tomato. Grown 90 miles away in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, the fruit comes from heirloom Catalan seeds cultivated by farmer Connor Bruns at Chalet Farm. “He’s an artist,” García says. The two worked together to bring the seeds from Spain, adapting them to the soil here. “Cooking starts in the field. That’s where flavor begins.”
Grandma Teresa
The Farm by Joan Miró, this painting inspired the design of Casa Teresa. Courtesy of National Gallery of Art
The chef’s personal story with tomatoes began not with flavor but with technique. As a teenager, he visited a culinary school and tasted a tomato stuffed with rice salad, its skin peeled flawlessly. “I couldn’t believe it. I had to learn how they did it.” (Score, blanch, shock in ice water—the skin slips right off.) That moment sparked a career, but the tomato remained a constant.
Casa Teresa is named for García’s grandmother, who was a political activist and labor organizer when the Spanish Civil War broke out. Her story, once nearly lost, resurfaced through family research: a woman who was hidden at a rural masia, or farmhouse, later captured and imprisoned for three years. “She put others before herself,” he says. “Naming the restaurant for her is a responsibility.”
Casa Teresa’s dining room evokes a Spanish masia farmhouse kitchen, and an open-fire kitchen spills into a communal farmhouse table, inspired by a drawing from Joan Miró of his family’s own masia—a place, García imagines, much like the one where Teresa once hid. Guests pass plates and stories. The flavor that ties them all together? Tomato.
“This isn’t about nostalgia,” García says. “It’s about memory. And what it means to feed people with what you have.”
For García, the tomato is more than an ingredient—it’s a connection point. To his homeland, to the farmers he partners with, to his family’s past, and to the kind of cooking that values simplicity, precision, and purpose. It’s the first thing he learned to cook with, and it’s still the one he returns to.
“Tomatoes remind me where I come from,” he says. “And with every dish, I’m trying to pass that on.”