Delicooks

It’s said “we eat with our eyes” and color plays a key role. I hope to bring this to its maximum expression, by “painting” recipes based on edible food pigments and by playing with textures and colors.

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You’ve had a meteoric rise. You’re self-taught and yet you currently advise numerous restaurants. From your vantage point, can you tell us where the food world goes from here?
Food will keep evolving but progress has been so rapid lately that we’re entering uncharted territory. This means that many chefs will stick to the safety of what they know, to what they are familiar with and what they think the public wants. When faced with the unknown, people tend to go back their roots.  Only a few will be brave enough to face the challenges ahead. Only what is really useful and comforting will survive. Complicated discoveries or techniques will be left in the kitchen drawers where we store our already accomplished goals. This will satisfy the restless urges and ego of the chef. Such quests for new things are, of course, crucial. That’s how we have pressure cookers, mixers and ingredients unknown in the past and commonplace today.

Do we still need avant-garde cuisine or is it time to get back to basics?
Everything new, that helps food, that’s functional and serves the chef and satisfies the diner is welcome. The origins of cooking probably go back to the stewing of herbs and roots and the roast of wild game which gives us what are now considered classics such as rabbit stew, vichyssoise and so on. Cuisine renews itself in cycles, where new standards are set and new knowledge is applied leading to new classic dishes, such as fruit caviar, spaghetti in olive oil. The classics of tomorrow are the achievements of today. Cuisine needs "thinkers" but it also needs those who are aware of their responsibility to feed whoever sits down at their table. We all have to eat everyday. Both realities are necessary.

If you had to honor of feeding the ten best chefs in the world, what would you prepare?
If I had to come up with a three-course menu, I think I would opt for:
A first course of poached eggs with foie soup, slices of crusty bread and sliced truffle.
A second course of fried  lamb sweetbreads with kokotxas of turbot a la pil-pil, perrotxikos and powdered ham.
And for dessert, pina colada with jasmine.

You were one of the pioneers and proponents in Spain of cooking with flowers. Are you experimenting with other products?
Now I'm working on "the flavor of colors", of its influence in the kitchen, trying to understand the psychology of color and giving some tips on how to combine colors and flavors in order to achieve both a harmony between the chromatic and taste. I’m looking at presentation and the precautions to bear in mind.  It’s said “we eat with our eyes” and color plays a key role. I hope to bring this to its maximum expression, by “painting” recipes based on edible food pigments and by playing with textures and colors.

What do you do in your free time?
I cook. I find it hard to do anything other than cook, work on a project or look for inspiration in books and markets. But if I get around to doing other things, I like reading, travel, walking, painting or seeing a good movie. That said, even when I’m watching a movie, I’m writing. I find it hard to sit still!.

What was the last meal you prepared for your friends?
Poached egg with wild mushroom soup and foie; baby squid with string beans and garlic sprouts; and chocolate buñuelos.