Experts claim that this is the best generation of cooks the country has ever produced. It is not just their dazzling technique, nor the fact that there are so many of them working around the country. It is also the flow of fresh ideas and friendship which is marking a change for the future.
Mainly in their twenties and early thirties, all of them run their own kitchens. But they have achieved that independence via different routes. Some are largely self-taught, some fell into cooking by chance, while others searched out a training in top French and Spanish kitchens. In general, there is a swing away from busy, complex plates to an apparent simplicity Produce-led cooking is also at the top of the agenda. Here we talk to five chefs from around the Mediterranean and Cantabrian coasts, about their life and work, and each of them gives us a dish.
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Josean Martinez
Josean Martínez’s career has been meteoric. Seven years after starting cookery school at the age of 15 he became head chef at the Restaurante Guggenheim Bilbao. "It hasn’t been easy. It makes you tough. But it’s quite a romantic profession. The day-to-day satisfaction comes from seeing people made happy."
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Pepe Rodríguez Rey
"I see myself as an eternal apprentice," says Pepe Rodríguez Rey. "I think one day they’ll shut me up for being obsessed, like Don Quixote." He learned to cook through necessity, aged 23, when his father, who ran the kitchen of the family’s roadside restaurant, El Bohío. near Toledo, fell ill. "I got the bug and thought, wow, there’s more to this than I realised."
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José Carlos García Ortiz
His cooking since he took over the family restaurant has expressed his Andalusian roots in a deeply felt way, with everyday local products and dishes - like sardines, gazpachos, chickpeas and artichokes – given the same respect as the prized luscious local prawns, and langoustines.
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Andoni Luis Aduriz
Aduriz was just 26 years old when he began running the kitchen at Mugaritz, a converted cider-bar in paradisical countryside close to San Sebastian. The first Michelin star came just a year later.
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