Dani García shares with us his new projects.
We visited Lobito de Mar, Dani García's new and "saltier" restaurant in Madrid, to chat with the three-starred chef (even if only for a few days) about his future projects and those dreams – always shared – that have led him to be what he is today: a complete chef who teaches how to cook some meatballs through the big screen that feeds 600 diners the dishes that made him happy when he was a child. This is the man who one day dreamed of making skewers in Madrid.
It hasn't been two months since you opened Lobito de Mar in Madrid and you already have it full until December. How you feel?
I'm very happy. I think that the most beautiful thing about dreaming is imagining something and that something similar or even better than what you had thought ends up happening. Like dreaming of making skewers outside of Malaga. And whoever says to make skewers says to make gazpacho or ajoblanco or bring a plate of coquinas to Madrid. As a chef it is exciting to be able to bring the gastronomic culture with which you have grown up closer to the public or that you have lived, all those dishes that you cooked with your mother or your grandmother.
In the case of Lobito, all this has turned out and it has turned out even better than we had imagined. You have to keep evolving and keep dreaming so this can be done in Madrid, but in the same way also in Paris or in any other part of the world.
And what is your grandmother's kitchen like?
It's what I ate every Saturday or Sunday at home. That type of kitchen in which you go to the market, see what is there, buy it, bring it and prepare it. Something that everyone understands extremely fresh, direct, easy, simple, product. Although obviously here it is evolved.
This is the new Lobito de Mar in Madrid.
Some call it signature seafood…
Keep in mind that we serve between 450 and 600 guests each day. I think that the 'author' brand is for another type of more minority audience. They also say that Lobito de Mar in Marbella is a beach bar, but we don't have the beach, it's 200 meters away. We could say that it is an urban beach bar because it treasures the essence of the beach. I like to think that Lobito prolongs the feeling of summer, since you can come to Madrid and eat some fried anchovies.
How are the works on the Four Seasons in Madrid going?
Our restaurant as such is finished, but the complex is very large. We will be ready in the first or second quarter of 2020. This is another project that has nothing to do with Lobito, and that I really want too. For us, working on so many projects is continuous fun and learning. Creating concepts for others, such as the Four Seasons, we like it, we are passionate about it. The truth is that we are giving it the same care and attention that we give to everything. Think that we have already done the most difficult, which is own restaurants.
What kind of cuisine are we going to find at Dani's?
It's an elegant brasserie. It is neither BiBo nor Lobito. It is focused on the public of the Four Seasons and Madrid. I think that in Madrid there is nothing similar to what we are going to do. In all senses, neither gastronomically speaking, nor aesthetically: a seventh floor, with the best terrace, the best views and in the best building in the city.
In Lobito de Mar the cuisine is fresh and comfortable.
Is the container as important as the content today?
Ultimately, this has always been the case. There are those who only care about the food and others who value the place much more. Many times we are not aware that we choose a restaurant because we like the atmosphere, the music, the lighting... That is why we try to encompass all these things and create very complete restaurants: cool, fun, with a good atmosphere, good music, good light and where you eat well. A restaurant goes far beyond the pure and simple gastronomic part.
There are those who say that the future lies in specialization, but I see that in your case it is the opposite.
Doing so many different things, on a personal level, takes a lot of work and can be very heavy psychologically speaking, so you have to be very aware of what you have to do in one place or another; also that when you do more things you need a learning period. I have not come to television knowing how to look at the camera or being able to follow a director by earpiece, that kind of thing is acquired.
But it motivates me a lot to be one day the Dani García who is teaching recipes to a certain audience and another day, the Dani García who is giving an interview talking about the New York project. For me, this without a doubt and from the heart I find it amazing, being able to do all this on a personal level: set up a fish restaurant here, a different one there, and also, watch out! get three Michelin stars, there are only 135 in the world.
Dani García is one of the most versatile chefs in our country.
He looks fascinating...
It is. Experiencing this type of situation at first cost me more, because changing the chip in your head was complicated, Cooking in a three-star hotel has nothing to do with making some meatballs for a house, but therein lies the grace, in making a television program that works very well, in being able to feed 600 people in a restaurant and, at the same time, achieve the highest score in the most important guide in the world.
What is it like to work on TV?
I've been recording three days in a row, and everyone is tired, imagine that. What I accepted as a fun extra is more work, but we did it because it caught our attention and we wanted to try it. I have a lot of fun and, although it is true that it consumes a lot of energy, it is rewarding to see that later there are many people on the street who follow us, who make the recipes. That makes up for you.
What have you contributed in 'Hacer de Comer' to this type of cooking program?
That has to be said by the public, but I really believe that there are many people who are learning with us, because The program is very educational. We teach tricks, including the exact pattern of how to cook. We try to explain those kinds of things, that they are important and that maybe people at home are not aware or were not aware of it. We try to give simple, sensible ideas that everyone can do and, above all, explain it in the most effective way possible.
BiBo Marbella was born with a very international concept.
What is your personal reading now that almost a year has passed since you announced the closure of Dani García in Marbella.
I would have liked to spend this year differently, but it is also true that I can't help but overlap the future with the present. What I don't want is to wait for the present to end and when the day comes when I close it, say: “now what do I do?”. Could the TV have started later? Yes, but the train passed when it passed and we decided to do it. We could have started once the three stars closed...
Many things have happened in this time...
For me It has been the busiest year of my life. of more movement, of more trips and, above all, of being very aware of preparing for the future that is coming, which is international expansion… Now I am going to open in Doha in a month or a month and a half.
Qatar's restaurant will be a BiBo, right?
Yes, because it is a very international concept. It was born this way in Marbella and then came to Madrid, a city that encompasses so many things and so many different people, so we didn't have to retouch too many things either. It maintains its essence: the good thing about BiBo is that it is a restaurant that you can really place anywhere in the world and it works.
BiBo Madrid revolutionized the gastronomic panorama of the capital.
Can you tell us about any other future projects?
Next year the expansion in the United States will be quite strong, we will likely have several openings in New York or Miami, but I don't want to talk much about it. It is true that we have an agreement with the American hotel group SBE and the expansion could be enormous, because it constantly has hundreds of openings and we are creating concepts for them, but I do not want to give specific data, because right now it is only an embryo.
Something very different from the concept of a three star...
We have to close stages, being constant and aware that we have already been haute cuisine, we have already achieved that, we reached the highest goal and now we have a different one: reach many more people with our cuisine. We must adapt to the public, try to do something relatively more comfortable taste-wise speaking... that people enjoy.
If that's what cooking is all about. You don't have to philosophize so much, you have to enjoy! Life is much simpler than we think. And it is what we try to convey in our restaurants: naturalness and hospitality in the service, that people come to relax and have a good time. It is like when you go to the cinema or buy anything, what you are looking for is that the value for money is adequate and that you enjoy as much as possible.
There are only a few days left for the closure of the three-Michelin-star Dani García restaurant.
And don't you miss the creativity of a gastronomic restaurant?
No, we are wrong about that. Making a matured fish is just as creative. May Ángel León teach us how to make marine sausage, too. Serving a tuna carpaccio can be another way to work on creativity, what an eye! It can be perfectly in a three Michelin stars. Creativity is not only found 100% in a restaurant with a star, it is also practiced by someone who sets up a place that only serves a muffin and a hundred cans of preserves. That is creativity and it is as valuable or more than that of any haute cuisine restaurant, as long as it is a sustainable creativity.
The big problem of haute cuisine restaurants…
We can be as creative as we want, as long as it is sustainable. We can serve four kilos of caviar a day or fill the tables with smoke from liquid nitrogen, but that costs a lot of money. And it's something we've already done! Nor should we forget it. We know where we come from and we do not deny it.
Lobito de Mar in Marbella is a beach bar without a beach.
Then the press arrives and we say: “Dani García hates haute cuisine…”.
I have been doing haute cuisine for 25 years and now I want to do something else. I think it's understandable. That I'm tired? Yes, of course, but I have not stayed still. When I look back, I see that just when I get the three stars I already have four or five restaurants up and running that work very well for me and another two about to arrive.
In my company, haute cuisine represents 6% of turnover, therefore It's not so crazy to do what I've done, everyone has their circumstances. I've already been through that, for being aware only of my restaurant and then you start realizing that you want to do more things. Now it seems like a super planned project, but before it was just an idea that has finally turned out well.
Could it be that the year in which you have had the most work is in which you have felt the most freedom?
Although it may seem contradictory, for a couple of years or maybe three, or rather since I started a little bit only five or six years ago, I feel freer. Everything has been taking shape. The sense of freedom is achieved when the things you do or say are happening, when the objectives are being fulfilled. That credibility makes you freer in your thoughts.
A free and common project...
Indeed, you are increasingly surrounded by people who believe in the project, by people who already dream like you. Sharing your dreams with your team is vital. A business must be profitable, but there must be a sentimental component behind it. Whenever there is a project, even if things happen or there is a setback or stones along the way, things end up going well because there is someone who dreams, and not just a dream of their own –although I was the first to start dreaming–, but because it has become one that has been joined by people who have been realizing that all this makes sense.
Dani García's dreams always come out well because they are shared with his team.