What will happen at the table during 2016?
It has been a fun year in the ring of the tablecloth and the knife: Can Roca is the best restaurant on the planet (or at least that is what the evil list of 50 Best Restaurants affirms), Michelin continues in its line a bit stale —not a miserable third Star this year—and Dabiz does not cease in jihad XO, his mission on earth: blow up the foundations of what we used to call a restaurant.
We have also seen how —definitively— we gastronomes return on a pilgrimage to real products and cuisine (trompe l'oeil: fake cuisine), how the avocado has conquered us, youtubers have invaded gastronomy and how 'neighborhood haute cuisine' has definitively taken the reins of what-interests-us. What does two thousand and sixteen hold for us?
Celler de Can Roca: memory, landscape, life, death, nostalgia... everything, on the plate.
1. SUSTAINABLE RESTAURANTS
It's okay to say that you are “very eco friendly” or what you crave the green , but it is time to go one step further: do it. The Association of Sustainable Restaurants (which awarded Azurmendi as the most sustainable restaurant on the planet ) advises establishments on caring for the environment beyond the dishes and the neighborhood garden: sustainable architecture, reduction of water or electricity consumption or reduction of waste.
He has the most sustainable restaurant on the planet.
two. THE COFFEE IS EAT
We couldn't be happier with this trend. —and coffee is our religion. It is partly the result of the collaboration between Illy and Josean Alija from Nerua, in order to introduce coffee, green and roasted, as another ingredient in our kitchen. We went to the Guggenheim in Bilbao to try a menu made entirely from coffee beans (also desserts) and it is surprising how it works by enhancing aromas and flavors.
Green coffee infusion with pea shoots
3. EVERYWHERE GLOBAL CUISINE
Beyond Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga or Bilbao ; It will no longer be so strange to ask for a ceviche in Badajoz or a Thai curry in Matalascañas (well, maybe this does). Global “urban cuisine” will co-exist with taverns and eating houses... It´s Taco time!
It´s Taco time!
Four. THE END OF THE ANCESTOR
Precisely about the end of Haute Cuisine we spoke with Ricard Camarena and Quique Dacosta at the MuVIM (Museu Valencià de la Il.lustració i de la Modernitat), the debate could not be more interesting: Has haute cuisine forgotten the gastronomic pleasure —and you have left it aside in front of other parameters somewhat far from the plate? Have we tired of the alcurnio and dandruff luxury of another era? I dont have doubts.
5. ECOFRIENDLY WILL REACH HAUTE CUISINE
Y leave the trail of the eco hippie tent with incense and soy crackers (inedible, by the way) ; the great gastronomic restaurants (perhaps a bit due to the drift of the traditional 'Haute Cuisine') dress in a new sensitivity towards healthy and local products. Restaurants like Céleri de Xavier Pellicer (eight seasonal vegetables, vegan and vegetarian menu) or Saboc (temperature cuisine) show us the way.
6. BAO BUN IS THE NEW SUSHI
Chinese Muffin, Baozí or Bun . The steamed street sandwich will sweep (even more) in taverns of all stripes. Easy to make, easy to eat and open to (a hundred) thousand gastronomic possibilities. My favourites? Canalla's Beijing pork sandwich, Chuka Ramen Bar's pulled pork and the culprit (I think) of all this: StreetXO's Club Sandwich. Hard porn.
StreetXO Club Sandwich
7. CROWDFUNDING REACHES RESTAURANTS
Beware of the initiative that has been launched Nuno Mendes (chef at Viajante , a London restaurant that we have already talked about a lot and well and that we already baptized at the time as "nomad" ) and it is that through Seedrs it allows anyone to become an investor in the future venue with appetizing gastronomic advantages (private tables or priority in future reservations). I'm sure more than one cook is taking good note...
Viajante, the nomadic restaurant
8. MORE AND MORE BOWLS
The culture of the politically correct and the “ polite ” is reaching memorable heights of stupidity. The image of a grilled wild duck (from the Noma restaurant) on David Muñoz's Instagram opened the Pandora's box of Spain **(how it hurts)** plus cateta and unleashed the anger of so many friends to fuck her with paper of smoking.
9. STAND UP PLEASE
R.E.M already sang it. and he is already here . First they took away the tablecloth (that was in 2011), then they brought us together at communal tables (2012) and now they will take away our chair. Eating standing up is the new eating sitting down. We will see it, right now, in the new creativity space that **Quique Dacosta will premiere in February: almost fifty standing plates! I'll go with slippers, Quique... **
10. PIZZA
Years, trends and foodies will pass; governments will fall and we will fuck with a virtual reality headset. **But never (let me go I tell you!)** will we abandon our only creed: pizza. Relationship status: pizza.
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