WG MAGAZINE
You cooked with some of the best in the world at the James Beard House alongside Jaun Mari Arzak, Joan Roca and Ferran Adrià… This experience was short but a huge catalyst that created the Chef I am today. I have idolized these great figures for years, and to experience them, and their teams first hand was life/ career changing. Their work ethic, comradery and passion took over immediately, they made you feel like you were part of their team, and they did it well. I couldn’t even notice any language barrier there was because we understood each other so well. Among the innovation, completely unique and new techniques you could feel how close they are to each other. There were teams from over 6 different restaurants but it felt like one team. I still remember that week as if it was yesterday, it’s one of the foundations of my career and I feel very fortunate that i was able to be a part of it. Your culinary philosophy, the process of creating a new dish… Expression through food is very important for me, as important as the desire to please the audience consuming the dish, but I always want to make sure the consumer leaves with fond memories and something they rarely experience. The creation process has to have few key factors that are very crucial. The longing for each dish to have a meaning made me create a list of questions that I always ask myself before I even start cooking. Some of those questions touch on the moment each dish was created in, what smell or visual prompted me to combine specific flavours, what memory brought the idea together. I love the idea of sensory eating, adding small detail to the dish that will bring out nostalgia, and my goal is to reach out and find a way of doing that, it is what connects us with food. Each dish has to be created with respect to the ingredients, so finding a sustainable source is just as important, but what is the story behind that source, where does it come from, can you meet the people behind the finished product. Each dish has to have a rock solid foundation of classical techniques, executed to the best of your abilities, you represent your whole being as a chef when creating and presenting your dish, it’s a part of you. Imagination and modernism, these two go hand to hand, how can you present the most delicious bite yet present in a way that will invoke a small challenge to the audience that will make you think of it as an experience rather than just food. APPLE YUZU
WG December 2018 -
111