The decline of haute cuisine: we talked to Quique Dacosta
A phrase: "We do not represent anything, the world does not revolve around haute cuisine" that comes from the mouth of Quique Dacosta, three Michelin stars, best restaurant in Europe for the NYDailyNews, Doctor Honoris Causa in Fine Arts and present in the ranking of 50 Best Restaurants. Today, the Dacosta group manages four restaurants, bills two million euros a year (whose profits are responsible for supporting the parent gastronomic restaurant in Dénia) and employs 80 professionals.
But let's review Who is this guy capable of generating respect, distance, envy, suspicion or admiration, in equal parts among clients, press and colleagues in the kitchen? Dacosta arrives in Dénia from Jarandilla de la Vera, and begins to wash dishes in that distant summer of 1986. 26 years cooking and a note "I am no longer the majete chef, look how well he cooks, scoundrel, handsome and funny".
YOU COMPLAIN?
"No, it would be super unfair for people to say what the hell this guy is complaining about, the reflection is associated with the difficulty he has being in Dénia, It's not Madrid, it's not Paris, it's not London, it's not New York , forty employees in Dénia is not the same as 40 employees in Madrid".
Let's keep going. At 16, he was already in El Poblet and at 18, he is already head chef. "I started in the 80s with popular cuisine, in the 90s we tried to update Valencian haute cuisine (but not extreme things) from 1999 to 2001 there is a process of germination towards what will be my most personal cuisine, from 2001 to 2009 the dishes that make us known in the sector are developed: the Montgó truffle, the Foie gras cubalibre , the other a tribute to Frank Gehry (Guggenheim), the animated forest or mist..."
plum plums
- And they give you the first Star, fourteen years ago... "In 2002 they gave me the first Star, the recognitions arrive: best chef in Spain, National Prize for Gastronomy, the second star arrives, everything accelerates "; in 2009 Dacosta acquired the entire ownership of the restaurant from his father-in-law, Tomás Arribás, in an operation that exceeded one million euros. An operation that was talked about a lot at the time. I ask you, was it very hard the negotiation? "It was very hard because I didn't feel that I was honest negotiating that way." I let it be there, let's keep talking about cooking.
KITCHEN, KITCHEN AND MORE KITCHEN
At that moment, you become an entrepreneur... "I already was, but that's when I start to open restaurants that bring me closer to the big city -Valencia- where there are people and where I can find an audience to create a more sustainable concept , which generate money and allow me to balance those years of crisis with two Michelin stars". So all the profit from Vuelve Carolina or Mercatbar is reinvested in Dénia? "That's right, that's how it has been at least until this year, because last year Quique Dacosta Restaurante has already generated profits."
And 26 years later, the third Star arrives, ranked 26th in 50 Best Restaurant and recognition as the best restaurant in Europe by the United States Guiness Guide. I notice Quique serene, as if rather far from the chicken coop that this entire amusement park that is haute cuisine has become —a little—.
I have done an exercise these last few weeks: call the three Michelin stars to check the availability of a table; except DiverXO and Celler de Can Roca, empty tables and the feeling (this opinion is mine, I assume the risk) that this haute cuisine is a bubble that we journalists continue to feed , (some) cooks, foodies and clappers. Our mouths fill with the Rocas, with David and with Aponiente, we tweet their dishes and write literary chronicles, but every weekend we fill the tables of other types of restaurants : taverns, bars and taverns; simple cuisine, prominence of the product, well-prepared dishes, reasonable prices and, above all, less nonsense.
AVANT-GARDE AND FANTASY
And yet we dream (we continue to do so) with gastronomic experiences that change our lives —as is— with coup de coeurs around a table and two glasses of wine. Those temples where one can relax, restaurants where crossing the threshold of the door means entering a more civilized, more authentic and, ultimately, better world. Where to dream of a better tomorrow (more mine, more ours) to the perfect rhythm of the service, the cutlery and the rhythmic sound of the dishes.
It's a luxury —beyond the sterile debate of what is expensive or what is cheap— Restaurants like this exist. And cooks like this one. It is a luxury to continue waiting for "that", that dish, that moment, that experience that you will never forget.
That's what this was all about, right?
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Quique Dacosta in the kitchen