Sabela, a gastronomic proposal for everybody

An exceptional product treated with respect, a lot of care and love, as well as a story to tell. When we think of a place that can offer all these characteristics, it is inevitable that it does not come to our minds... Sabela Bar & Food Market. A place where, as well as preparing its well-known breakfasts at home, you can also enjoy a good snack or a meal, as well as good wines and top quality preserves. Moreover, the concept of enjoyment in our own homes goes far beyond breakfasts, because yes, Sabela is also a gourmetproducts shop.

When Cristina Hernández, food journalist and entrepreneur, decided in 2019 to make a necessary change to her life and her business, she closed The Concept and Sabela was born, located in the same premises in the well-known Numancia Street in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

"Before Sabela, I had another project that I opened with a partner in 2014. The Concept was a hybrid between fashion and gastronomy, as in addition to being a slightly alternative clothing boutique , it also offered a café service. That's where the brunchesand home-delivered breakfasts started", says Cris Hernández.  

Cristina Hernández: "I said that one day I would open a Coalla in Tenerife, but not a copy, but an adaptation of that idea that I liked so much".

"In Oviedo I discovered my place of reference, Coalla Gourmet. A gastronomic temple, far beyond what a restaurant is, and quite an experience. It consisted of a large bar, which I love, and offered an indecent amount of top quality products, from wines to sausages, cheeses, preserves and even vegetables. After that, I said that one day I would open a Coalla in Tenerife, but not a copy, but an adaptation of that idea that I liked so much", he explains.

For Cristina, Coalla was the pinnacle of gastronomy and she believed, quite rightly, that Tenerife needed a place with these characteristics. When Sabela opened, she decided not to give up the breakfast at home that characterised them so much: "We kept what we already had, the breakfasts, and we expanded the menu around an informal concept, without any pretension, where the product was good and represented the local in the most accurate way possible".

Cristina Hernández: "I grew up among sacks of flour in my maternal grandmother's bakery".

For the owner of Sabela, gastronomy is something she has been passionate about since she was a child: "I grew up among sacks of flour in my maternal grandmother's bakery". Of course, she was always curious about cooking: "I used to watch my grandmother and my mother cook and I wanted to replicate what they did. I also loved cookbooks, learning recipes, products and names of dishes. I could spend my afternoons reading". Before long, Cristina found herself working in the family bakery preparing cakes for events in her village. "Baking was something I loved. I was thirteen years old and I learned by myself through trial and error, throwing many cakes and desserts away. There was no internet, just a few books and the few references my mother gave me".

Later, she started going to restaurants and there was one that marked her in particular, the restaurant of the Hotel La Palma Romántica, owned by her uncle: "When I was fourteen, I used to sneak into the kitchen and learnt a lot from the cook, Doña Nieves García. I watched how she cooked and tasted, asked her questions and looked through her books. She taught me a lot of traditional French and European recipes".

Cris Hernández started working professionally in gastronomy in 2008 and since then she has been linked in one way or another to the media as a contributor to various programmes. In 2009, she created one of the first digital magazines about gastronomy in the Canary Islands and it was this content that led her directly to communicate in the press, radio and television. She has also collaborated with gastronomic guides such as Repsol and renowned magazines such as Condé Nast Traveler. But her motivation has always been cooking.

Cristina Hernández: "I ended up combining my work in the media with a place where I could continue telling stories".

"I never had the idea or the illusion of setting up a café or a bar. What I wanted was to have a place where I could eat something as simple as toast with jam and butter that was good, prepared with good products", says Cristina and explains that the primary sector is something she is really passionate about.

"I ended up combining my work in the media with a place where I could also continue telling stories. For me it is essential to explain where things come from, who makes them, all the work behind them, so it is easier to understand the value they have and why they cost what they do. We have a responsibility both to our environment and to our farmers and producers, we cannot just be dispensers of food. We have to tell the whole story, as we are the final link to the customer.

Cristina Hernández: "We can't just be food dispensers".

Sabela offers an experience through which a customer can be eating at the bar, taste some preserves, a wine or a simple jam and be able to take it home if they wish, or even just come to the shop to buy it. Cristina emphasises this, as she thinks that this concept is still not clear: "In addition to our breakfasts, the taperío or the wine by the glass, Sabela is also a gourmet shop and a wine bar. You can come in, buy your things and take them home". Moreover, it has always been clear to her that she wanted a fusion of all these concepts in her premises, home delivery service, restaurant, bar, gourmet shop, and that everything should revolve around a large bar.

"When we opened Sabela it was crazy. It's a typical place where you can go at any time of the day and find someone ordering a tapas or a sandwich and a beer, as well as another type of customer drinking champagne and tasting thirty-euro tinned food. It's more of an experience than a question of whether I can afford it or not. Sabela has many different customer profiles and they all live together in the same space. "Once a customer told me something that I really liked and that is that Sabela is an exclusive place, but not exclusive", he adds.

On the other hand, Cristina highlights all the teamwork behind Sabela and the important role played by her brother Jacinto, who captains the restaurant and makes customers feel like family: "Without the team, the experience in the restaurant would not be the same".

Cristina Hernández: "Sabela is an exclusive venue, but not exclusive".

If Sabela is known for anything, it is for her home-delivered breakfasts, although Cristina does not hesitate to clarify that she did not create them: "I had seen that this was done on the mainland. They were very pretty boxes with things inside, a packaged juice, packaged muffins, a packet of ham..., like doing the shopping and no. I wanted a home-delivered breakfast that when the customer received it, they would say 'Wow! Someone has got up and prepared breakfast for me'. That it arrives at home hot, which is fundamental, and, above all, that it is just as good if you eat it straight away as it is four hours after it has been prepared, and for that the products had to be the best".  

In addition, Cris Hernández emphasizes that 90 % of the breakfasts at home in Tenerife that they prepare at the restaurant are for gifts. Of course, being dedicated to the home delivery service, taking into account its complexity, made it easier to do a good job during the pandemic months when it was impossible to leave the house. "With the pandemic everything skyrocketed, the volume of orders was huge and, purely organically, we went from the six thousand followers we had on Instagram in March, to ten thousand in June. Everyone ordered and shared on networks." For his part, he stresses that the work in social networks is fundamental and that nowadays it should be treated as one more payroll to be paid within the company.

Cristina Hernández: "You may like it more or less, but at Sabela we offer a totally different proposal".

At this point, what is clear is that if you eat at Sabela, whether it is a sandwich, it will be different. "You may like it more or less, but at Sabela we offer a totally different proposal to what you can find in other similar places in Tenerife", explains Cristina and she stresses that something that bothers her a lot is that people think that eating or drinking at Sabela is expensive: "You have to tell what is behind each product to be able to understand that Sabela is not expensive value for money. Here we always try to offer the best, from ham or cheese, to wine, coffee or preserves. I see similar places that have a similar offer, but with an infinitely worse quality and at the same price or even higher".

Trying to offer the best products, as well as improving every day is what has positioned Sabela as one of the best restaurants in Tenerife. In addition, maintaining good feedback with customers has meant that they always choose to come back: "The best publicity, even if it is the slowest, is word of mouth".

Paula Vera

Photos: @sabelabar

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