Robuchon in 1984
It is being a sour year for the highest French cuisine. Little less than seven months after the death of the pere of nouvelle cuisine, Paul Bocuse , the world receives the sad news of the death of Joel Robuchon , the chef of excellence, who managed to accumulate 32 Michelin stars with its restaurants scattered around the world, from Tokyo to Las Vegas.
Wherever executives moved and jet setters , this cook of kings planted a flag to offer his vision of classic french haute cuisine.
It speaks well of our cuisine that this internationally recognized and welcome chef be inspired by Spain to get a little out of the French pot and base the offer on its successful workshops in our way tapas , which open so many doors to our young culinary ambassadors, and the pleasure of eating at the Japanese bar, in front of the chefs.
Joël in his Hong Kong Atelier
He was one of the first Europeans to dare with this mode of service, in which the cooks themselves served you the dishes. Here, we are used to bars, it would not seem so exotic, but in France, where the service of waiters is a revered centuries-old ceremony, it would leave the bourgeoisie speechless.
And he says more about the humility of him that he chose Teulada , Alicante to spend the summer every year instead of the beaches of St Barths or even the luxurious hidden places in the Balearic Islands.
Robuchon received a very religious upbringing as a young man in his hometown poitiers and he got it into his head that he had to cook for God. But not the simple and spiritual version of what the wise interpret from the Bible. The Vatican version . Luxury and perfection at all times. Kitchen designed for Archbishops and not humble shepherds.
Lamb ribs perfectly roasted, and decorated with gold appliqués on the bones, on polished copper trays and their accoutrements. However, it was his mashed potatoes , - or as my friend Cristian Gil says, “ good butter and cream, with a little potato ”-for which he will be eternally remembered.
The first time he touched me to elaborate “the puree of the gods” it was like stagier in Calima by Dani Garcia, one of Robuchon's dearest Spanish friends, who honored him at one of his multi-starred dinners with seventeen of our mega-tops (the Adriá, Dacosta, Aduriz, Roca, Alija, Freixa, Morales, Paniego, León... EVERYONE! ) two years ago, with the great man present.
In Marbella they taught me to cook the ratte potato with skin in cream over low heat and with the pot covered , so that the whey in the cream would not evaporate and be cut before the potato was cooked. After passing the cooked potato through the potato masher, we linked it with butter to pain. I can't think of making a puree any other way since then.
When one thinks of the dreaded image of a chef terrorizing his cooks and servers, the fury that rose from Robuchon's chest surpassed the famous bad host of Marco Pierre White , and it was understood that it was a message that came from heaven, but with the heat of hell.
One of his disciples, Eric Ripert , still trembles when he remembers how nervous he used to be when it was his turn to distribute points of sauce on the plate with a bottle. A millimeter to the left of more could summon a dragon of sulfuric acid that burned the neck until reducing his dignity and self-esteem to ashes..
So clear was his vision of his excellence and so effective was his teaching that he managed to train an army of professionals in fourteen countries on three continents to replicate the dishes and service from him every night for years. The only one that almost reaches him is Alain Ducasse, that he came to hold twenty-one stars among his numerous restaurants.
With them the vestiges of haute cuisine disappear.
Despite being a cook to whom are attributed recharged services , with one foot in absolute classicism, he took many cues from the revolution of Bocuse to lighten the dishes, to the point of being one of the main responsible for teach the world of haute cuisine to highlight a single ingredient on the plate, enhancing the natural flavor, instead of so many combinations of aromas, textures and garnishes.
When he returned from pre-retirement at the age of 51 in 2003, he did it like a hurricane, opening his Ateliers without tablecloths, carpets or all those additions that make the business and the experience of the diner more expensive , and adapted to new tastes. And today, his death and that of his comrade Bocuse last January, symbolize a critical moment in the progress that avant-garde cuisine has been experiencing for a few years.
Adriá spoke more than a decade ago about the importance of democratize haute cuisine , bring it closer to the working class, and the chefs took note and applied their guidelines. There is no neo-tavern that does not have a collection of jars with gelling powders in your pantry, siphons loaded with salty creams and glass bells to put on a show of smoking a plate of artichokes in front of a group of friends who come to dinner in flip flops.
And this summer, those of us who dream of crabs and crawl Instagram to look at food, began to notice that starry chefs they are beginning to basify even the dishes they serve in their exclusive dining rooms.
Au revoir, Rebuchon
Arzak is starting to serve some dish that could have come from the bar of the brutal bar , (with more presence of vegetables arranged in a circle with good herbs and leaves on top) where Matthieu Perez It is very much setting the trend of the Neo-Bistrot in Barcelona, simplifying even the cuts of vegetables.
There are his dishes that seem to be taken from an Italian Mensa, but in which the flavors always wake you up. fun similar to what you feel swarming through red districts . Perhaps the media pressure on the controversy of interns in kitchen has made chefs rethink their profession, and they are feeling the responsibility to prioritize a dignified life for their employees, lightening their workload, putting fewer frills on the dishes, and **prioritizing a good seasonal product in its fair cooking, such as Rafa Peña does in his Grescas **.
The flagship Dani Garcia at the Hotel Puente Romano is fabulously maintained at two stars, their precise plating , combining the grace of Andalusian stews with the lightness of Impressionist cuisine, to the delight of those who have managed to keep their names out of the Malaysian case papers, the arms dealers who roam along the Marbella coast, and some than another KGB agent who prefers a discreet place to dine in public.
But where is Garcia becoming unbeatable, apart from his successful Bibo , in which a glutton can go from a pizza made in a wood-fired oven to a steak that has nothing to envy to the links of meat that they drop in cider houses in the north, without forgetting its irresistible oxtail muffins that give four kicks to my loved ones steam baths (Dani's muffin crusts are more like English crumpets, with bubbles trapped in the cooked crust, than the frozen Chinese loaf lumps they buy in many of the baos bars that have flourished in our lands, and he bake in donut moulds, with a hole in the middle) , It is in Lobito de Mar.
I haven't had the chance to fall into this place yet, but I've looked carefully at what the chef from Malaga posts on his networks, and I applaud those trays that cover the entire table with piparras, potatoes and fried eggs raffled between queues of lobsters , or those crushed ice trays holding a mega-mix of bivalves and fine shells of different calibers so that a family can put their hands in and take the sea in its purest form into their mouths.
It is as if Dani had said: “To hell with so much paraphernalia. What my people like is eating well with their hands! We are Andalusians! Let's celebrate!"
Joël would say "C'est bien".