There was a time when A & H Gourmet and Seafood Market was just plain A & H Seafood Market. And plain it was. While it had fresh fish flown in from Portugal once a week, it was a little dark and dingy.

You wouldn't recognize what ex-Taberna del Alabardero executive chef, Santi Zabaleta, has done to the place. The terracotta dishes that range from side plate size to huge are still there, along with the paella pans hanging from the ceiling. But nothing else is the same. The store is bright and clean and filled with light - and every specialty you can think of from Spain and Portugal.

In the fish display are fishes from Spain, Portugal and Greece on ice, impeccably fresh. Sardines and sea bream (known as dorade in France and branzino in Italy) are among them, along with local fish like rockfish and scallops. 

In the frozen cabinets you'll find squid ink, packages of cooked, peeled and deveined crawfish, frula (hair-thin baby eels), rabbit, duck breasts, jumbo quail ($9.95 for 12), and Portuguese specialties like bacalao croquettes, rissois de camarao, and their national pastry, Pasteis de nata. In the chiller are chorizos, smoked sausage and more.

On the shelves is everything from a range of olive oils to dried beans and pulses, pastas, sauces, olives, jars of white asparagus, good brand cans of vegetables.On the counter is manchego cheese, marinating in olive oil, bay leaves and peppercorns.

A star is the Iberico ham. At Dean & DeLuca a pound of this velvety charcuterie meat will set you back $99. Here, it costs $55. That's because the store sells wholesale to restaurants, which keeps the prices on some of the goods down for the rest of us.

When Zabaleta was chef at Taberna del Alabardero, I interviewed him. He was born in the Philippines, where his Spanish family had business interests, and grew up there and in America. Summers were spent visiting his grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins in Spain.     

“I have a family very richly involved in food,” Zabaleta told me then. “My father is an agriculturist and I think the earth also has a lot to do with your diet. My parents are from a small town in northern Spain, a quintessential fishing village. People there are more in touch with food. They know about pesticides. We ate the full Mediterranean diet. We grew up around food as a way of life on a daily basis, always attentive to what we were eating.”

His grandfather had a bakery. “There was a beautiful aroma when you walked into it.  There were brick ovens!” During high school holidays he trained with a Swiss-German chef who had a sausage factory that made charcuterie. “He taught me the basics. ... Aged about 18, I had to formalize my education. That’s when I went to New York and the Culinary Institute of America.” 

After that came a stint in London at the venerable Connaught Hotel before he returned to New York and then moved to Washington. He spent two years at the Taberna del Alabardero before deciding to go back to Spain “for good. That lasted a year!” A former Taberna chef left, opening up the job for him. So back to Washington he came. And ran the kitchen at the Taberna as executive chef for several years, until deciding to move into this different side of the restaurant world with a revamp of this market.

A & H Gourmet and Seafood Market, 4960 Bethesda Ave, Bethesda, 301 986 9692.

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