Tribute to Pepe Solla (Father) and a mythical generation of Galician cuisine
So much has happened in **Spanish cuisine** since the 80s that we tend to lose perspective. not so long ago there wasn't a contemporary cuisine restaurant in every neighborhood and the premises recognized by the great guides they were a rarity, places most people went to very rarely with a mixture of fear and respect.
not much more than 25 years the french academicism prevailed in the kitchen. Some, a few, dared with the legacy of the Nouvelle Cuisine of Bocuse, Guerard, Troisgros and company but the vast majority, even of the highest-end restaurants, practiced a cuisine that today seems centuries away.
That change, from a French influence and a some standardization what we know today as contemporary kitchen has a series of fundamental architects: the New Basque Cuisine In the first instance, Santi Santamaría, Martín Berasategui, Ferran Adrià or Joan Roca.
From left to right: Paul Bocuse, Gaston Lenotre, Roger Verge and Michel Guerard in Paris
But before them there were pioneers , people whose job was to teach us that there was something more than traditional cuisine wave great international bourgeois cuisine ; ahead of their time they did not have it easy. Because if you do something like that in the Spain of late Francoism it was not easy in Madrid or Barcelona, dare with small towns of Asturias, with the rural of Girona or with the Pontevedra estuaries was, the perspective that time gives us makes it clear, quite a feat.
Were a couple of generations that paved the way , which educated the palates of the diners in something that had never been proposed to them and that, in short, they marked the way so that later everything that happened could happen.
Last week he left us his great representative in the northwest, **Pepe Solla, the father of Pepe Solla **, the chef we all know today. In the words of his son: “Perhaps now many of you know me, but I must clarify: I am who I am thanks to my father , he taught me everything, and I'm not talking about cooking, that's the easiest thing in my life; he taught me what really matters ”.
Pepe Solla and his wife, Amelia, at Casa Solla in the early 1980s
“Pepe Solla left, yes, Pepe Solla, because I am Pepe Solla's son, don't get confused, don't forget, he was Pepe Solla ”, continues the cook. But Who was this Pepe Solla and what importance does he have for current Galician cuisine?
Solla was the founder of the restaurant Solla (or plaice house ), an essential name in the history of Galician cuisine. In 1961, together with his wife Amelia, he converted the family grocery store in a restaurant.
It didn't take long for the restaurant made a name for itself . In 1965 the michelin guide gave him a mention which makes it the dean of the guide in Spain. In 1980 the star came . He was not the first in Galicia (the disappeared Hotel Palace de Vigo held it from 1930 to 1938 and also **in 1980 it was obtained by the restaurant El Mosquito **), but it is currently the oldest, since since that year it has appeared in 40 consecutive editions.
Cover of the first book of 'Friends of Galician Cuisine'
His secret was in know how to read a new clientele , to a wealthy Galician bourgeoisie that combined, in the dining room of this house on the outskirts of Pontevedra , with an incipient tourism that reached Sanxenxo and A Toxa and that demanded a restaurant to match.
And the key was not to be just one more, to make the Galician product an essential pillar of his proposal but to be able to accompany it with touches of French cuisine. And pay attention to the Galician wines So very unusual in restaurants of this type.
Casa Solla logo in the 70s
Solla's client could decide on some shrimp or small crabs from the estuary, but he could also try the Special Sole Plaice , with some popietas and a sauce inspired by the classical meuniere very untraditional. Or top off the meal with the Plaice Special Dessert , a versioned Alaskan soufflé that is still today , despite the update of the offer, an emblem of the house.
Beyond the restaurant, which also has the merit of having been able to give itself continuity, allowing Pepe Jr. to take the lead and carry out a small internal revolution, Solla's role is also fundamental in other aspects.
At the beginning of 1984 along with six other restaurant owners and journalist Jorge Victor Sueiro started Friends of Galician Cuisine , a key piece for the Galician cuisine get rid of complexes and claim. In many ways, they were the first step for Galician cuisine to have the status it has today.
Several of those six founders no longer exist. the mythical Chocolate or Casa Vilas closed years ago , the Saint Michael of Ourense changed management and approaches. Solla is surely the best exponent of a sensible update that he has not lost sight of at any time the Galician product as a reference and that has been able to maintain itself as a fundamental name of national gastronomy.
Founding act of Friends of Galician Cuisine
In a panorama like the current one of Spanish gastronomy, where news abounds , in which there are, fortunately, countless points of attention, it is convenient from time to time look back to understand where we came from.
Unfortunately, in this case it is sad news that makes us stop and reflect. We are satisfied that Pepe and his wife have been receiving tributes and recognition for years.
His name has been mentioned for decades with respect within the Galician and state culinary scene . joins those of Benjamin Urdiain (Zalacain), Josep Mercader –which opened the restaurant of the Motel Empordà (Figueres) the same year as Solla- or, in a more recent but equally important generation, loles savior, the matriarch of the De Andrés family, essential to understanding contemporary cuisine in Valencia.
then they would come Hilario Arbelaitz, Juan Mari Arzak, Pedro Subijana in the Basque Country, Luis Cruanas in Catalonia, Peter Moran In asturias, Raimundo Gonzalez Fruits in Murcia, Jose Garcia Marin in Córdoba and so many others that have brought us here, names without which Spanish gastronomic history would have been very different and to whom we owe a toast to their health, a portion of Soufflé Alaska, a sea bass in green sauce or a scorpion fish
Because they and their dishes are part of our history. And because there is no better way to say thank you.
"Because they and their dishes are part of our history"