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(Ezcaray, 1968).
A fifth generation cook, he was the first chef in all of La Rioja to get a Michelin star, to which in 2013 he added a second.
He declares himself a casquero and claims the casqueria for haute cuisine.
His family has been dedicated to catering since 1898, his mother was awarded the National Gastronomy Award in 1987 ... Was he born knowing that he was going to be a cook? It is what I have always seen at home. And of course, seeing your parents and grandparents in the kitchen made me want to help out and be that too. There were not many options, and I did not consider other alternatives. Your mother made traditional cuisine, you haute cuisine. How did you get out there? My parents did very well with the strategy of good value for money, embodied in the daily menu. They were extremely successful. Other circumstances touched me: I was able to study hospitality, work in Zalacaín, in Cabo Mayor, in Akelarre, in Arzak, in El Bulli ... And above all in El Bulli I saw a series of things and I said to myself: "I want to play in this league, I want to play this haute cuisine thing. " And how did your parents take it? I would go to study and work in winter and come back in summer. And every time I came back more upset, with more ideas, talking to my parents that new things had to be done. My parents, on the one hand, were happy about the illusion of seeing a son with great enthusiasm but, on the other hand, they were worried that Echaurren might turn into another type of restaurant and that it would lead them to ruin. We had many fights, but now I understand their fears. At first my dishes were on the menu of our traditional restaurant. And one day my father, who is still alive and is a very clever uncle, said to me: How about we leave that dining room for you and do your things today? And so we started. Did it cost you to make your hole? At first it was hard, because nobody entered, there was not the gastronomic culture that we have now. When they called by phone to make a reservation, we asked where they wanted to eat, whether at the mother's restaurant or at the son's. And I had nothing to do, my mother always won. I was like the insolent who had dared to ride something next door. Until the first star arrived, the first from La Rioja. That changed things a lot and allowed the two spaces, each with its own personality, to coexist. Since 2014, his haute cuisine restaurant has had a menu called Entrañas that includes a heart tartar, lacquered brains, pork tendons, cod tripe ... How did you get to the offal? By my own evolution as a cook. At first I used to make an imitation kitchen: new Basque cuisine, after Ferran's first kitchen of deconstructions and associations ... And little by little I was molding my own style. Along with Madrid, La Rioja is one of the most hulking territories in Spain, and it is very hulking of lamb. Here we have some great tripe Riojan style, lamb legs, patorrillo, asadurilla ... There are great offal dishes. Going into the right places on Laurel Street in Logroño is a show, make fun of any street food in Hong Kong, there are incredible places where you can enjoy those traditional dishes. And looking at what was happening with some cooks that I admire a lot, like Ángel León, who was suddenly thematizing all his work around seafood, I said to myself: And why not work on offal? ... I have always liked the offal, but I had always hidden it, always used euphemisms to name it and said, for example: "Artichokes with honeyed veal", when in fact it was language, but I could not say language because if it He said they didn't ask me for the plate. Or "slices of cod with silky lamb dishes," and the silky ones were brains. Until one day I said: "Come on, let's make a menu all offal and stop using double language to name things." It was like coming out of the closet. And how was that offal menu received? When we started a lot of people told me: "You're crazy, you're going to kill yourself, not everyone likes this." But it was a bombshell. The offal is a natural resource that gives us a lot of personality because it is very ours. The cooks who are in this film all have an important point of ambition, to do something that is recognized, that is appreciated. And I realized that the offal was something that could help us in that sense. You stop going after others to mark your own path. Is it difficult to make haute cuisine with offal? It's very difficult, because everything has to be very, very fresh. A heart tartare is either flawless and perfect or it's a horror. In addition, for us who work with lambs, it is very important that they are made of milk, if they have tasted grass, the flavor changes. The offal is also a great metaphor, right? Yes of course. It is to take out what you have inside, it is to undress a little. You clearly will cook more with the guts than with the head, right? Well, don't believe it. We also cook brains, we also cook with our heads. Are you looking to provoke with your offal menu? I seek to convince. You already commit the daring when you decide to make a offal menu. Here we are looking for a very simple thing: that people leave happy, that they leave happy. I who have grown up with my mother's food, that everything was rich, that everything was spread, because she had a gift for making delicious things: vegetable puree, croquettes ... I cannot conceive of a kitchen that does not be rich. The taste is essential for me. There are cooks who want to disturb you a bit, it's a game that I love when I go to those places. But it is not my case, I need to do rich things. It is disturbing enough already to face a tartare of lamb hearts that it is not rich. And do many dare with the offal menu? In general, if there are three people at a table, it is usually only one who asks for it, and the other two look at it as if to say: "Let's see what they get out of it." Normally the one who asks for the offal menu is the brave one and the one who comes out saying: "Guys, what you've missed." Asking for the offal menu has the challenge of having reached 8,000, of having done something very daring, that you would not have dared. And they go on telling it, telling it a lot. Where does this rejection of the offal come from if you have always eaten offal? I think it starts with Unamuno, who was profoundly anti-shell. In addition, I believe that we have been a country that has grown economically a lot in a few years and we have believed that eating lobster was the great luxury. I remember in the 80s the amount of lobsters, lobsters and foie that were consumed in this country, more foie was eaten in Spain than in France. Cooking from the 80's was terrible. But it seems to me that we have shaken that complex a bit. Although I still have clients that I cannot give according to what things .... I remember, for example, a client who got very angry and stopped coming because I gave him a chicharro, a scrapped pea with a vinaigrette, and he considered it a very noble fish. There are certain things that we associate with a certain status. But I think that we have already overcome it. How is our culinary culture going? He has improved a lot, but I think there is still a lot to do. We still have a very, very poor taste palette. Our cuisine must have had to be much richer before the expulsion of the Jews by the Catholic Monarchs and of the Moors by Felipe III. With his expulsion there was an impoverishment, a way of eating disappeared and the ode to the slaughter of the pig was generated, which is born to say that one is Catholic, apostolic and Roman. Here before, ginger and coriander were widely used, and we no longer have that associated with our culinary culture. That secret ingredient that our grandmothers threw into their food, that mashed almonds, was surely something half Moorish or half Jewish that enriched the stews a little more.
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