Gastronomy

It is among the world’s ten best restaurants and boasts two Michelin stars. Many consider it as the heir apparent of El Bulli. This comment inevitably comes up every time people talk about Disfrutar, the project run by Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch and Mateu Casañas that masters cutting-edge gastronomic techniques.  

Eneko Atxa is one of the most award-winning Spanish chefs within Spain and abroad: five Michelin stars, Best Restaurant in Europe, and Best Chef under 40, among other awards. Innovation and sustainability are part of his DNA to achieve culinary excellence.

Work and creativity are the ingredients that are never missing in Adriana Chía’s cocktails. This formula has made her a bartending leader worldwide. Now she’s adding her facet as an entrepreneur and her life as a mother to the mix.

Since 1882, tradition and high cuisine meet on the stoves of Asturian restaurant Casa Gerardo. These days, Marcos Morán is responsible for the menu, alongside his father—a family tradition that goes back five generations, and one that has earned them, among many other achievements, a Michelin star.

Vega Hernando, best known as Eating Patterns, has turned the kitsch movement, graphic surrealism and food into the three pillars of her photography. With a crowd of followers on Instagram, this designer and art director publishes her first book about recipes and patterns in March.

Although the saying goes “A prophet is not without honour save in his own country”, chef Ricard Camarena fully contradicts this statement. His restaurant in Valencia has not only consolidated his second Michelin Star, but has raised him up to the top of international gastronomy.

The first woman in Spain to be named Master of Wine represents a new generation of winemakers who preserve the legacy of the past while working on the challenges that wineries will face in the future, the main one being the adaptation of grapes to climate change.

Three Michelin stars aren’t enough for Spain’s most popular cook. On the verge of opening his third StreetXo, in Dubai, Daviz confesses he’s hungry like a shark—always looking for his next prey. The chef’s secret? Surrounding himself with talented people and applying his own with iron discipline. There will be plenty of time to relax later.

Saray Ruiz is the first woman to win the top prize at the 11th Championship for Best Master Artisan Chocolatier Lluís Santapau Trophy. Her next challenge is to lead the Spanish team at the World Cup of Pastry in Lyon in 2021. Two great news for a bubbling career.

A self-taught photographer, Raquel Carmona has forged an unmistakable style in food photography, her images resembling still lifes by Velazquez. Her masterful command of light, which she has honed after hours of trial and error, and her love for the Baroque inform her pictorial culinary photographs, which feel like they can be bitten and savoured.

This isn’t a restaurant. They feed you, there’s a menu, tables, cutlery, kitchen and wine, but this isn’t a restaurant. Its name says it all (LABe, Digital Gastronomy Lab) and the Basque Culinary Center, the entity responsible for this pioneering project ‘testing’ new gastronomy, is quick to remind us of this.

Gastronomy, inclusion and commitment are the three foundations of UNINICIO; a non-profit social project aimed at training young people at risk of exclusion. A place where cooking boils down to opportunities.

Ferrán Adriá, Paco Roncero, Dabiz Muñoz… Many of the biggest Spanish chefs show their haute cuisine creations on crockery made by Pedro León. We met this artisan (this is what he considers himself) in his authentic workshop in Madrid to talk about his pieces, the raku technique and the growing interest in this millenary art from the world of gastronomy.

Food photography is going through a glorious phase. We talked with Mikel Ponce, one of the experts in the field, about a trend that, in recent years, has jumped from the kitchen to bookshelves in the form of genuine artist books.

In a move towards originality, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum reinvents the appeal of painting, bringing it closer to the charms of haute cuisine with a scrumptious art book.