Marco García
About me
Owner and chef
My name is Marco García. I was born in Seville in a grocery shop and grew up as a hotelier in the bar of my parents, the current Cristina Bistró.
I always thought of having a bar that reminded me of that shop with the atmosphere of a tasca, where you could drink, eat or shop.
A little bit of history…
In the beginning we served breakfast, when it was rare to have it in a bar, that was a matter for young men, but when the university was near, it was normalised to such an extent that it became our daily bread.
At that time it was called Café Bar Cristina in 1988.
To eat bread with oil was a village thing, ham was a luxury to be eaten on toast, tomato for the Catalans. The usual thing was to ask for margarine, fuagrás or lard.
The first orange juices were a nightmare to prepare, ordered only by the wealthy travellers, until we bought an almost automatic juice making machine, one of the first in the city.
Asking for a glass of eau-de-vie or cognac was even a good idea.
We served roasted coffees of the robusta variety in cane glasses with fresh milk from the bag, the first saccharines, we looked at them with disdain, what kind of diet is that? jajajaja… What a time! The first tourists were seen at the expo92.
Then the combined dishes, that’s how we started cooking and we haven’t stopped doing and learning.
Several years passed and we took a turn towards a more casual cooking.
With the rise of tourism we have been offering our most Andalusian gastronomy, always trying to adapt to changes, attending to the tourists who visit our city and to our longstanding clients, a gift from wonderful and beloved people.
At present…
I return once again, to try to adapt the Cristina, to the current change.
Cristina Bistró is adapting again, as an Andalusian tavern, as a gourmet and picnic shop, where you can have lunch, tapas or dinner, drink a coffee, enjoy a wine or buy a bottle or something you like or order a picnic to enjoy it wherever you want, for breakfast or a snack.
In this new stage, I want to offer quality products again, looking for those that seem different and interesting to me, cooking in the same way as up to now with patience and respect, attending to them with a complicit smile and trying to make my customers feel comfortable and happy.