Nerua: surprising and without cheating
And yet... yet **Nerua is amazing**. Truly amazing, no booby traps or fireworks or hooks in the pouch. Amazing from the very entrance door, at the back of the Guggenheim ( Josean Alija he began taking the reins of the room and the cafeteria of the museum and years later he convinced Frank Gehry himself to carry out Nerua ) and which gives direct access to the kitchen where Josean, Enaitz Landaburu and Adrián Leonelli plot, whisper and build a kitchen unlike any other. An army of thinkers that looks more like a Buddhist temple -silence, reflection and purity - that kitchen stained with stoves and noise that we all keep in our heads.
The staging in the room is surprising, due to its theatricality, because aesthetics -each chair, each detail- is not a frame, but a message: a blank canvas. Extreme minimalism and only one window over the estuary that divides Bilbao between the new and the old . There is no trace of napkins, cutlery, crockery or glassware. A room that looks more like a frame by Dreyer or a dress by Raf Simons, a blinding minimalism, almost (almost) unsettling. Something is going to happen here.
Josean Alija at the controls
Surprising because -I insist- this kitchen is like no other . I find no trace of references, nods to other names or trends that those of us who plant black on white like so much. And at the table essence, product and terroir. Invisible kitchen (I know there is no such thing, but if designers talk about invisible design, why can't an invisible kitchen exist?) and it is that each dish is a small work of foodie engineering - due to its enormous technical complexity, because of the fascinating behind-the-scenes story - dressed in nudity. The most difficult disguised as the easiest.
After the gin and tonic (a Martin Miller's Westbourne ** on the terrace with the Guggenheim in the background, telita **) I ask Josean about his kitchen:
“My cuisine is characterized by searching for products from the environment, which is why I sometimes speak of a root kitchen, but talking about this is very extreme and I have realized that my value lies in making a selection of products and then cultivating them in my environment. . This has forced me to create a sustainable network of producers, with whom I have a lot of empathy , which allows me to have exclusive, natural and close products. I have managed to bring nature closer to the city”.
Here tomatoes can be memorable
The menu is drawn by thirteen unforgettable products (not dishes, products) . Tomatoes in sauce, white onion, cod cheeks, sardines from Santurtzi, pork tails, lobster, baby squid, ventresca, foie gras and avocado. The curtain closes with strawberries and citrus. Tomatoes, onion, cocochas and sardines are beyond memorable . Four dishes that -I know- I will never forget. Faulkner wrote that one never heals from his past. I wish.
end of party The sun leaves the line, fleeing from the scorpions of the sunset, hiding from the ticking of the clock that stops, that says: that's it. I know I have to write a chronicle (the one you are reading) but I sense that I won't find the words to translate this cuisine (sorry, Josean) . Let someone else close this story . Let him do it Manuel Vincent :
"Tighten your belt, go back to Spartan austerity, soak your feet in a basin under the vine, eat fruit and salad, put on the old pants and a clean white shirt, buy a straw hat and endure all the attacks holding on to the jar of jam of the grandmother”.
Health.
Nerua: textbook minimalism