Patatas bravas contest crowns Valderrama chef Mauro Barreiro
Eighteen chefs cooked in the seventh Una de Bravas final in Palencia. The Sotogrande golf-club chef takes €1,500, and his winning dish moves to a Gibraltar hotel in November.
Mauro Barreiro, chef at the Real Club Valderrama in Sotogrande (Cádiz), won the international patatas bravas contest in Palencia on Monday 28 September with a dish he calls Bravas Colorás, the news agency EFE reported.
The final of Una de Bravas, now in its seventh edition, ran through the day at the Hotel Rey Sancho as a live showcooking, with an audience in the room and a streaming feed. It was organised by Palencia Brava with the backing of the city council and the provincial government. Eighteen chefs cooked: 15 picked by a technical committee and three who came through a local qualifier in Palencia, according to the food site DSAlicante.
Second place went to José Luis Martínez Mora of Taberna y Media in Madrid with Bravas Tradición, and third to Javier García Albuger of Asador de la Concepción in Albacete with VRAVAS del Asador. The reports published so far give the names of the dishes, not their recipes.
A tapa that costs a few euros in any bar now has a jury and a podium.
How the patatas bravas final was judged
The professional jury included two Michelin-starred chefs, Álvar Hinojal of Alquimia-Laboratorio in Valladolid and Elena Lucas of La Lobita in Navaleno (Soria), as well as the 2025 winner Javier Alfaro of Rosi la Loca, the Barcelona chef and food influencer Rafael Antonín and three broadcasters and editors. A popular jury voted separately. One finalist, Juan Rivera of Barcelona Wine Bar in Washington DC, could not travel for logistical reasons, COPE reported.
The prizes are modest, which says something about the category. Barreiro takes €1,500 in cash from the brewer Mahou, 1,500 bottles of Fuentes de Lebanza water, a video report and a work by the Palencia artist Antonio Guzmán Capel. Second place was worth €1,000 and third €500. Side awards went to La Caverna in Málaga for innovation, for Pachu Barrera's Bravas Andaluzas, and to Taberna y Media for presentation.
From Sotogrande to a Gibraltar menu
Patatas bravas, fried potatoes under a spicy sauce, are usually traced to Madrid bars of the post-war decades and remain one of the cheapest fixtures on a Spanish counter, at a time when restaurant prices in Spain are rising faster than the supermarket basket. Palencia has staged its contest since 2020, and COPE describes it as the longest-running international competition devoted to the dish.
Barreiro cooks at a golf club better known abroad for hosting the 1997 Ryder Cup than for its tapas. Anyone who wants to taste the winning patatas bravas will have to cross a border: according to EFE, the Bravas Colorás go on the menu at The Rock Hotel Gibraltar in November.
