THE COOKING CLASS
ATELIER HERMANAS LORO
“You need to eat croquetas with your hands,” says Isabella. “That way you feel the textures and the contrasts both in your hand and in your mouth. You just don’t get that same crunch if you use cutlery.”
Compliant, I bite into a croqueta made with cecina de León (a local cured beef) and parmesan. Its granular, breadcrumbed shell explodes under the pressure, releasing a bechemel sauce that’s rich and full of flavour. I’d made this filling earlier under close instruction, stirring the onions as they sweated down in a puddle of local olive oil and watching as they acquired a soft, glistening texture — it ’s satisfying to now detect that sweetness in the sauce.
Mónica, Isabella and Marie José, better known as the Hermanas Loro (Loro sisters), have been running their cooking school in Logroño, the capital of the Rioja province, for 14 years. They’re a restless trio. As well as the school, they run two restaurants (El Arriero, in the nearby village of Sorzana, where they’re from, and Divina Croqueta, in Logroño, which focuses solely on the dish it takes its name from), as well as a catering company and a deliver y service. “It ’s in our genes,”
