Oxtail browned hard, then braised for hours with onion, carrot, tomato and a bottle of Montilla-Moriles until the meat slips off the bone. Served with the sauce reduced to a gloss and a pile of fried potatoes.
Where to eat it: 4 restaurants across 1 city.
Rabo de toro is Córdoba's bullring dish, cooked from the tail of the animal after the fight and slow-braised because there is no other way to eat it. The city has kept it on tabernas cartas continuously; Bodegas Campos, open since 1908, has served it for more than a century. Andalusian versions differ mainly in the wine: Córdoba uses Montilla-Moriles, which is drier and more oxidative than the reds used further north, and gives the sauce its particular nutty edge. Today most oxtail sold in the city is beef rather than fighting bull, which is legal, normal and rarely mentioned on the menu.
Tip from the editors. Cook it the day before. Oxtail is better on the second day, and the fat sets on top overnight so you can lift it straight off.
Bodegas Campos has poured in Córdoba since 1908, a warren of patios and barrel-signed rooms off Calle Lineros serving rabo de toro and salmorejo.
Signature: Rabo de toro, Salmorejo, Flamenquín
Order: Rabo de toro, the dish the house has cooked for over a century.
Tip: Ask to walk through the barrel rooms before you sit; the signed butts are a century of visiting names.
Taberna Salinas serves salmorejo, flamenquín and fried aubergine off Córdoba's Corredera, in a barrel-lined room the Salinas family took on in 1924.
Try: Salmorejo and flamenquín
Order: Salmorejo, then flamenquines de jamón serrano.
Tip: An earlier tavern stood here from 1879; the Salinas family business itself dates from 1924.
Casa Pepe de la Judería has fed Córdoba since 1928, a taberna downstairs and a roof terrace upstairs that looks straight at the Mezquita tower.
Signature: Mazamorra, Rabo de toro, Berenjenas fritas con miel de caña
Order: Mazamorra, the almond-and-bread ancestor of salmorejo.
Tip: The roof terrace is the reason to come, so ask for it when you book rather than taking a ground-floor table.
Taberna Góngora is the family taberna on Conde de Torres Cabrera in Córdoba, adapting most of its carta for coeliacs on a separate chickpea-flour fryer.
Try: Rabo de toro and boquerones
Order: Rabo de toro, then boquerones, both at taberna prices.
Tip: It closes Tuesday and Sunday, an awkward pair that catches out anyone planning a long weekend.
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