The story of Casa Chuchu began 95 years ago, in an era when Turón, a valley that winds its way from Mieres into the Navaliego mountains, was one of Asturias’s main industrial centers, with nine mines operating at full tilt. It was then that Iluminada and Sabino Jesús opened a small establishment, a chigre, as they call it in this area, which their son Rafael would transform, three decades later, into a cider house.
Nearly a century after its doors first opened, now that the cider house is celebrating six decades, the third and fourth generations of the family have breathed new life into it, turning it into a reference in the valley and into one of those venues whose name is spoken throughout Asturias as an example of renewal well understood.
Algo más que una sidrería
Rafael and Natalia spent years shaping a cider house that, without abandoning its essence, became something more. He, a wine enthusiast, commands the room with ease, his knack for securing tables, reading the space, and guiding the service. She, from the kitchen, handles the traditional recipe book with ease and adds measured doses of creativity that, little by little, drew in a broader and more varied clientele.
And then came Rafa, the third Rafael of the family saga and the fourth generation at the helm of the business. A philology graduate, he returned home after stints in Germany and the United States, chose to train further, specializing at the Basque Culinary Center in San Sebastián, and came back to join his mother at the stove.
In that moment the idea of renovating surfaced. The traditional cider house, whose kitchen had grown, needed to take a leap forward to avoid stagnation, but the risk of losing its identity was real, hanging in the air. Yet the parents showed the generosity to understand that it was necessary. And the son, the courage to lead this new phase in which the two generations continue working hand in hand, but in which it is he, together with his partner, who is steering the steps of a evolution that does not stop.
