Tag Archives: toros

Capote y Toros, 157 Old Brompton Road, London, SW5

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Back when my book, Into The Arena, was published last year the Reuter’s editor Angus MacSwan decided to interview me at a new, bullfighting-themed tapas bar in South Kensington called Capote y Toros (‘cape and bulls’).

All the food was excellent, especially the gambas al ajillo – sizzling prawns in garlic. It also has the largest selection of sherries in London: not only the standard finos, olorosos and amontillados of Jerez de la Frontera and Puerto de Santa María, but also the manzanillas of Sanlucar de Barrameda. CyT is also the only place I have found in London with proper jamón ibérico de bellota – the pata negra name you sometimes hear refers to the distinctive black hooves of the ibérico breed. They import the 5J from the town synonymous with jamón: Jabugo.

So when a production company asked for a good venue in which to talk about bulls, this is where we ended up, under the photos of all the great matadors alive today from Curro Romero to Morante de la Puebla (its name is capote after all.)

While I was there, the restauranteur–aficionado Abel Lusa came along to say hello. He recently opened CyT and also owns the more formal tapas restaurant Tendido Cero across the road, and the justly famed Cambio de Tercio a few doors down, a favourite of the likes of Rafa Nadal when he’s in town and most recently graced by the Duchess of Cambridge.

Abel Lusa

(I was meant to eat there with Giles Coren so he could review it along with my book as as follow up to his piece on my training as a bullfighter, but they don’t do lunch, so we went to 34 instead.)

Alexander Fiske-Harrison

For those that missed it: The return of Juan José Padilla to the bullring in Olivenza.

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YouTube video below:

Alexander Fiske-Harrison

The matador Juan José Padilla triumphs

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Juan José Padilla tours the ring in triumph on the shoulders of our friend Adolfo Suárez Illana (click to enlarge)

Juan José Padilla is a Spanish matador whose generosity of time, spirit and courage allowed much of my book, Into The Arena: The World Of The Spanish Bullfight, to exist (click here to purchase at Amazon UK, and here for Amazon US). And, without him, as many critics pointed out, it certainly have been as widely praised as it was (nor shortlisted for Sports Book Of The Year 2011, I suspect.)

Juan José was the first matador I met in Spain. It was he who took me to my first training session with cattle at the ranch of Álvaro Domecq, ‘Los Alburejos’ (and then onto his own nightclub ‘La Lola’ in Jerez de la Frontera afterwards). This – including the club – forms chapter three of the book. He was also with my when I first entered the ring myself at the ranch of Fuente Ymbro (chapter four), and much, much more besides.

So, when I heard about his horrific goring, detailed in the post here, in which he lost his left eye I knew that I had to be present when he inevitably returned to the ring.

However, no amount of confidence inspired by Juan José’s words when I visited him at home two days before the fight, nor seeing the calm beauty of the bulls in their natural wilderness the day before that, could prepare me for his triumph in the ring, ending with him being carried out on the shoulders not of the crowd as is usual with a great success in the plaza, but on the shoulders of the top matadors of today – who had gathered to watch – and now jockeyed to carry the Maestro themselves.

However, should you wish to know more of Juan José, read Into The Arena, and then go and see him in Valencia on March 16th alongside the No.1 matador in Spain, José María Manzanares or they will both be fighting at my own favourite ring, in Seville at the April Fair, on the 20th and again, with his old friend Fandi (the technical no .1 in Spain) and El Cordobés on the 28th (you can buy tickets here). I would suggest that in Seville those on a budget stay at the Hotel Adriano (website here) next to the bullring, those who want old beauty stay with my friends at the Hotel Las Casas de la Juderia (website here), and those who prefer the boutique, with my friends at the Hotel Corral del Rey (website here). Direct flights from London are by Ryanair and Easyjet.

Alexander Fiske-Harrison

Juan José Padilla with his capote (Photo: Daniel Ochoa de Olza / APMore Photos)

Mad Bulls and Englishmen by Giles Coren in The Times

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This article of Giles Coren’s was originally published in The Times magazine on Boxing Day ’09 where it is still available along with Dominic Elliot’s film of our day bullfighting here. All photos are by Nicolás Haro.

Alexander Fiske-Harrison, the English bullfighter, takes on a ‘vaquilla’ of the Saltillo breed. Inset: with Giles Coren, attending a bullfight in Seville.

Writers and travellers have long been drawn to the drama and romance of the bullfight. Giles Coren is no exception, so when he was contacted out of the blue by the younger brother of his dead best friend, now training to be a bullfighter in Spain, Giles was intrigued. Here he describes his journey into a unique culture of noblemen, peasants and swindlers, all driven by deadly serious dreams of death and glory

I am in a bullring. Not in the seats, in the ring. On the sand. From the relative safety of a wooden barrier with a small room behind it, built into the stone wall, I have seen four vaquillas, young cows, “caped” by one of Spain’s most famous matadors, the son of the first post-Franco prime minister of Spain, Adolfo Suárez Illana, and by Alexander Fiske-Harrison, the younger brother of my best friend at school, who died in an accident the year we left, three months before his 19th birthday. Continue reading →

The Bullfight and the Ban (and the Spanish Economy)

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El Cid in Seville on Saturday evening
(Photo: Alexander Fiske-Harrison)

The ban on formal Spanish-style bullfights, corridas de toros, in the autonomous region of Catalonia came into de facto effect last night with the final corrida in Barcelona’s great bullring, La Monumental. (The ban, voted for in the regional parliament in July 2010 actually begins in 2012, but the “season” is now over”.) At the time, I was in transit back from another, very different Spanish city, Seville. (Apologies to Fiona Govan at the Daily Telegraph for not available for comment as a result.)

I had flown out to Seville to fight – non-fatally – on a ranch nearby for the cameras of NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams in the US, before going to watch a corrida in the true heartland of bullfighting in Spain, it’s oldest major bullring, La Plaza de Toros de la Real Maestranza de Caballería de Sevilla (1749), then NBC was going to fly on to see 20,000 people pack into the century old Barcelona ring to watch Spain’s greatest matador, José Tomás, perform as the curtain fell on that part of the mundo taurino.

After NBC pulled out due to production problems, I took my girlfriend to the city I now regard as my second home after London and remained safely in the stands.

On Friday night, we saw a mediocre set of bulls of the second rank, fought with courage, determination and a lack of flair and technique by equally second-rank matadores. Given that we were sitting front row in seats generously donated by the bull-breeder Enrique Moreno de la Cova, it left a bad taste in my mouth. If the faena, the final part of each bull’s fight with the muleta or small red cape, has no art, then watching the picador drill his lance twice into each bull less than six feet in front of you can become the dominant visual memory. An evening out with that most garrulous of British aficionados, and the British Prince of Pamplona, Noel Chandler, did much to alleviate this.

Luckily, on Saturday night, we watched the Seville professional- as I think of him – El Cid fight his first bull with a blithe confidence which built up to a complicated brilliance using a sense of timing and grace of movement which I thought he had lost.

El Cid in Seville on Saturday evening
(Photo: Alexander Fiske-Harrison)

Continue reading →