The 8 green activists (Madrid Fusión 2021)
This year there is not a single chef of the year in Madrid Fusión, but 8 honored chefs: Andoni Luis Aduriz de Mugaritz (Rentería, Guipúzcoa), Rodrigo de la Calle de El Invernadero (Madrid), Ricard Camarena (Valencia), Xavier Pellicer (Barcelona), Ignacio Echapresto de Venta Moncalvillo (Daroca de Rioja, La Rioja), Javier Olleros from Culler de Pau (O Grove, Pontevedra), Fernando del Cerro from Casa José (Aranjuez, Madrid) and Luis Callealta from Ciclo (Cádiz).
ANDONI LUIS ADURIZ
His Mugaritz restaurant is seventh on the list of The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2019 (the last classification made). Aduriz applies philosophy and culture to his cuisine, thereby achieving constant surprise, always rooted in the territory.
RODRIGO OF THE STREET
“I specialized in vegetable cooking in a natural way” . Rodrigo de la Calle, son of a farmer and grandson of cooks, has been dedicated to vegetables for almost two decades. “I am very grateful for the award, but we have to be honest and recognize that what we chefs do is not very sustainable either, because we hire many suppliers and generate a lot of waste. Even the use of the word sustainable has become quite unsustainable , since everyone tries to appropriate it”.
The speech vindicator cook was one of the pioneers : “Eleven years ago, also at Madrid Fusión, I was already talking about the circular economy and now it is being used as a marketing tool, but awareness has not yet been raised”. In his opinion, “ we should stop eating so much meat and so much fish or not to use the car to go buy bread, but the governments would also have to ban certain materials from certain companies . Fewer fallacies are needed and more things of truth”.
RICARD CAMARENA
“We try to be as consistent as possible, so that the entire global context of the restaurant is in tune with the values we want to convey to the customer . We want to feel useful, that the work we do transcends the mere fact of feeding and promote the positive part that the sector has in our habitat”.
Ricard Camarena, who is currently propping up the different projects he has underway from the perspective of self-criticism, is in the process of “analyzing the areas for improvement to be aware of them, because we know that we are not doing things quite right ”. And that goes through sustainability applied to people : “If we are not sustainable, we cannot pretend that the planet is. We are very focused on plastic, but what about ourselves? That is why, among other things, open 3 days a week . "The challenge would be to be able to open 6 services and make it economically sustainable because it will be the way in which it will be humanly sustainable."
XAVIER PELLECER
In 2012 he turned his professional career around, when he met Joan Salicru , which opened the window to the world of biodynamic agriculture. Since then he has focused on a discourse marked by Ayurvedic nutrition (traditional Indian medicine), the vital energy of vegetables (" delicacies of nature ”, as he calls them) and each process, to create a healthy kitchen that feels good and is consistent with the environment. His manifesto is based on a forceful "We are exclusive but not exclusive": the best-selling menu at his restaurant is vegetarian although they also offer one vegan and one omnivore . In 2018 he was chosen as the World's Best Vegetable Restaurant by the We're Smart Green Guide.
IGNACIO ECHAPRESTO
The self-taught chef defends village and seasonal cuisine . For this reason, together with his brother Carlos, he opened his restaurant in Daroca de Rioja, which is now a restaurant with 1 Michelin star and 2 Repsol suns to which lovers of gastronomy make a pilgrimage.
Venta Moncalvillo has its own vegetable garden and its commitment to the rural defines its philosophy: since 2019 they have organized "Cocinas de Pueblo", a meeting point that gives visibility and values the cuisine that is made in small towns in our country, as well as to the producers and artisans who make it possible.
JAVIER OLLEROS
intuitive cook , Javier Olleros is in love with his environment, who has passed through great national and international kitchens before creating Culler de Pau in the old location of the family hotel. His purpose as an interpreter of the environment is for the diner to "feel the land, using products that come from it." He was chosen Revelation Chef in Madrid Fusión when Culler de Pau was only a few months old.
FERNANDO OF THE HILL
“It is recognition of something we have been working on for years, because we already know that vegetables can go from being a secondary element to being a main element within the dish ”. In your case, they work with the product around them to develop the environment. “I am a defender of the vegetable to give it another approach . In our area we have three fetish products: strawberries, strawberries and asparagus. Aranjuez has one thing that not many orchards have: our climate continues to have all 4 seasons, which gives us a wide range of possibilities with a diversity of products”.
The chef at Casa José (Aranjuez), tells us that his current job involves not cooking the vegetables, working them with different fats, seasoning them... and preparing them spontaneously, improvising. “ We are also working on the treatment that should be given to frozen vegetables”.
LUIS CALLEALTA
The chef from Cadiz, who everyone affectionately calls Luiti , inherited the profession from his grandfather, trained with several of the greats of gastronomy, such as Berasategui or Ángel León... and today he is one of them. A few months ago he undertook his own personal project, the Ciclo restaurant, in the Cadiz neighborhood of Santa Maria , along with his partner, morning dew . In his “house”, he maintains a close relationship with local providers and works daily, which he defines as a luxury. “In Aponiente I learned to work with waste, which is still a trace of the human being. We work with ugly but unique vegetables, which have small visual flaws. We recycle ourselves daily and make innovative but ephemeral dishes, contributing so that these vegetables are not thrown away”.