The "Gueridón de Oro", San Sebastian Gastronomika – Euskadi Basque Country's award acknowledging the work of professional dining room managers, goes to Cáceres this year, and specifically to José Polo, sommelier at Atrio, receiving the prize from Pedro Subijana, who said: "we are nobody without the restaurant floor. The kitchen revolution took years, the revolution of the sommeliers came after that, and the restaurant floor's is yet to come. But there also has to be a revolution among the general public, to learn to respect their work”.

Polo expressed his thanks for the award, saying that "our job is not a job, we're a team. What's most important is to make sure that the people who come to see us are happy. We started out 36 years ago, and it was the customers who taught us. That happened before we even realised it, we learned and we're still learning, to make people happy. The most important part of a restaurant is its soul, what is intangible and untouchable. The soul that is the staff will be increasingly important in this globalised world. It is the team that gives some restaurants soul, and not others".

The Extremadura restaurant's wine cellars is held to be one of the world's most spectacular, with over 40,000 bottles and 2,700 different wines. A selection combining wisdom and good taste, which also made the news following a highly publicised robbery.

Polo takes up the torch from María José López de Heredia, owner of Bodegas López Heredia, who won the award in 2021.

"Gueridón de Oro" Award

2009 Josep Monje
2010 Giorgio Pinchiorri
2011 Juli Soler
2012 Eusebio Arbelaitz
2013 Josep Roca
2014 Didier Fertilati
2015 Abel Valverde
2016 Gérard Basset
2017 Louis Villeneuve
2018 Lluís García and Lluís Biosca
2019 Denis Courtiade
2020 Txomin Rekondo
2021 Maria José López de Heredia