The product and the territory are its keys
The vanguard is exhausted. A point —before the execution— the avant-garde, as we knew it, is dead, finite, caput. The post-avant-garde branches off into different paths led by chefs who are too personal to establish a pattern; perhaps we can speak of 'styles', of common universes —because there are particularities between them: between David Muñoz and Ricard Camarena (intensity and flavor without borders), between Quique Dacosta and Andoni Luis Aduriz (the path behind elBulli) or between Kiko Moyá and Francis Paniego (the “**third way**” of that avant-garde that looks to the land). It is likely that a militant gastronomy fan of the DiverXO world will enjoy more at a table in Camarena than at El Portal de Echaurren.
So it's hard to predict where our haute cuisine is headed. However, reviewing the notes scribbled throughout the Peninsula in recent months, something is repeated among those 'promises' (in quotation marks, because some — despite their youth, have already been a reality for years) a new generation of activists culinary. Cooks absolutely committed to the environment and the product, chef-harvesters (in fact The Gathering Cook and the Wild Plants is the book signed by one of our protagonists: Miguel Ángel de la Cruz) whose referents are the monsters up there but also totems of product cuisine such as Bittor Arginzoniz or Manuel de la Osa: chefs from the 'old school', that school that we defend without palliatives from our Manifesto for a true gastronomy : the table more as a meeting point than as a canvas in a modern art museum.
Miguel Angel de la Cruz in La Botica de Matapozuelos
**Miguel Angel de la Cruz at La Botica de Matapozuelos (Valladolid)**
Winner of the Chefs Championship of Castilla y León in 2008, the cook-gatherer : «Being able to enjoy the environment, the enormous diversity of species that surround us, know the name and uses of what we see and step on, and enjoy the variety of flavors that nature offers us through plants in their different states of development, it is a privilege that knowledge gives us». Representative of an artisanal and militant kitchen without palliatives of the territory: a kitchen must be its environment (what we have repeated so much from Kilometer 0) in fact its menu for this autumn 2014 'De la piña y el piñón' is fully dedicated to the surrounding pine forests.
Nacho Romero in Kaymus (Valencia)
**Nacho Romero in Kaymus (Valencia) **
Aspiring for his First Michelin Star for a couple of years, Nacho began his journey alongside Sergi Arola and was head of the meat batch at Santceloni de Santi Santamaría , but it is in Kaymus from where he exercises his culinary militancy: simplicity, product and harmony (so outdated that the poor thing is). Great rice dishes, rossetjats and dishes without fanfare such as Mediterranean tuna, scallop with veal gizzard and artichoke royale or its mythical Russian salad. Over the table it is more common to talk to Nacho about fishermen, scuba divers, market stalls and local farmers than about artistic influences.
Chef Jordi Garrido
**Jordi Garrido in More than Torrent (Girona) **
In the shortlist for the award for revelation chef at Madrid Fusión 2014; he is at Mas de Torrent —an old Catalan farmhouse from the 18th century, where he has developed all his culinary imagery: exceptional product, collaboration with local farmers and seasonal cuisine. An honest proposal with a solid traditional base ( which reminds me in a certain way of the precision of Paco Morales ) absolutely linked to the Empordà and the Mediterranean. There is the cold almond cream, the turbot with onion from Figueres or the cannelloni with poulard and asparagus. It's worth the getaway, this guy (his kitchen, quicir) has things to say.
More names? The Austrian Hans Neuer at the Ocean Restaurant (The Algarve) and his staunch defense of the seafaring tradition of southern Portugal, Raúl Aleixandre and his happy return at Vinícolas or Iker Erauzkin at Saboc (Barcelona). Bring common sense back to the table. Eating for the sheer pleasure of eating (and drinking) is back. I'm in. * You may also be interested in...
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