Oscar Bosch came from Valencia to São Paulo with a sharp knife and a clear philosophy: Spanish cuisine doesn’t need translation, it needs Brazilian ingredients that understand it. The croquetas de rabada are the manifesto of this approach.
Six croquettes arrive on a turned wooden plate — the kind with that circular groove in the center that communicates craftsmanship without drama. Each piece is uniformly golden, with that fried shell that yields with a dry crack when you press lightly with a fork. Inside, the shredded rabada is wrapped in thick béchamel — not that pasty béchamel of lazy croquettes, but a béchamel that drew the flavors from the meat during cooking and became something else.
On each croquette, a quenelle of mustard-yellow allioli tonnato — garlic mayonnaise meeting tuna sauce in an unlikely marriage that Spain knows well. Cranberry and microgreens complete the composition with acidity and freshness.
Rabada is the most mineiro cut that exists. That it has become a Spanish croquette in São Paulo says something about how good cuisine ignores borders when it’s too busy being good.
The Spanish croquette technique is demanding: the ratio of filling to shell, the oil temperature, the frying time. Failing at any point produces a soggy dumpling or a cold interior. Tanit succeeds on all points with that consistency that only comes from a cook who has made the dish hundreds of times before putting it on the menu.
Six pieces seems like too little. It’s sufficient — and that too is technique. Leaving the customer wanting more is a form of respect.
Technical Details
- Location: Tanit, São Paulo, SP
- Category: Fine Dining / Spanish
- Average Price: R$ 150–250 per person
- Rating: ⭐ (5/5) — precise starter, perfect shell, allioli tonnato as revelation