Aubergine cut into batons or thin rounds, salted, floured and fried until the outside crackles, then finished at the table with a thread of dark cane syrup. Sweet against salt, hot against cold.
Where to eat it: 4 restaurants across 1 city.
Aubergine came into Andalusia with the Arab kitchen and never left, and Córdoba fries it more than anywhere else in Spain. The syrup is miel de caña, a black sugarcane molasses produced on the Granada coast, and calling it honey is a translation error rather than a recipe: there are no bees involved. The pairing is a survival of the Andalusi taste for sweet against savoury in the same mouthful, the same instinct that puts cinnamon on meat and orange in salt cod salads. Every taberna in the city runs a version, and the differences come down to the cut of the aubergine and how long the salting step gets.
Common allergens: Gluten
Tip from the editors. Add the syrup at the table, never in the kitchen. Sitting in it for even two minutes turns the crust soft.
Casa Rubio sits against the Puerta de Almodóvar gate in Córdoba, a 1920 taberna renamed in 1932 and now three floors deep with a wall-view terrace.
Signature: Berenjenas con miel de caña, Tortilla de rabo de toro
Order: Berenjenas con miel de caña, then the tortilla de rabo de toro.
Tip: It closes Tuesday and Wednesday, which catches out visitors who assume a Judería taberna opens daily.
Ermita de la Candelaria cooks inside a converted hermitage in Córdoba, almond-sauce meatballs and honeyed aubergine under a Sol from the Repsol guide.
Signature: Albóndigas en salsa de almendras, Berenjenas con miel, Salmorejo cordobés
Order: The albóndigas in almond sauce, a direct descendant of the Andalusi kitchen.
Tip: The building is a former chapel, so tables are few; book a midweek lunch if you want the easiest table.
Taberna Coto has worked Córdoba since 1972 and moved recently to Plaza de San Miguel, in the shadow of a more famous neighbour and publishing no hours.
Why locals love it: It moved recently onto a small plaza it shares with the far more famous Casa El Pisto and gets walked straight past, though it has traded since 1972.
Tip: Lomo en manteca colorá is the plate to order; it has vanished from most tourist-facing menus in the city.
Casa Mazal cooks the Sefarad and Al-Andalus traditions inside a fourteenth-century Judería house in Córdoba, with no pork anywhere on the carta.
Signature: Sephardic and Andalusi dishes
Order: Whatever the kitchen is running from the Sephardic side of the carta.
Tip: It closes on Wednesdays, and bookings run through a dedicated reservations line rather than the main house phone.
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