Restaurants

Chef Javier Muñoz-Calero has just reopened Ovillo.

PHOTOS: MARTA MUÑOZ-CALERO

Ovillo is Javier Muñoz-Calero's first solo project

It is located in an old leather goods factory in the Chamartín neighborhood

A good part of his team comes from the Cocina Conciencia program

His is an "honest kitchen", product, flavor and tradition

Chef Javier Muñoz-Calero defines himself as "humble, somewhat crazy and anarchic".

A lover of challenges, he was shaping his restaurant, Ovillo, when Covid came to spoil everything.

It has been a six-month break, an eternity, but a few days ago he put on his jacket again.

There is no time to lose.

The dream must continue.

It is clear that in life "you have to fight" things.

At 50% capacity, with two meters of distance between the tables, with the same enthusiasm and more impetus if possible than when it opened at the end of 2019, it has risen again.

Ovillo is his

first solo project

, a restaurant full of philosophy, a way of understanding life that goes by because dedicating yourself to the hotel industry does not rob you of time to be with your family, does not prevent you from going to the weddings of your friends or have reasonable hours to live like a "normal" person.

In short, that conciliation is possible.

"In this new stage we have changed things. We have corrected mistakes. I try to give my best version, I can't play it; we have made a shorter menu with the star dishes," he says between excited and nervous on the other end of the phone.

His is an "honest cuisine", product, flavor, tradition

.

And it is for many reasons.

Ovillo is located in an old leather goods factory.

He confesses that in these strange months he has cried a few times, most of it out of rage.

"

I have strengthened myself

. The breaks make you reflect. And the most positive of all has been spending so much time with my three children and the three of the person with whom I share my life. I stay with this."

They are also a bit the origin of 'her' Ball.

It was a Monday when Javier was going down the Castellana on a motorcycle and had to stop.

He was on his way to his old job, then an executive chef in an important hospitality group with a large team of people under his charge, when tears forced him to stop.

I was crying with grief.

"He was not happy."

And I wanted to change things.

"I enjoy cooking, eating, drinking and sharing,"

says this chef, who also has his space in the Telecinco program 'Viva la Vida'.

I already had a backpack full of experiences, ranging from Thailand to Barcelona, ​​from Switzerland to Paris, from the capital's fashionable rooftops (Círculo de Bellas Artes, NH Collection Gran Vía ...) to those of the US embassy in Madrid.

Tartán, Muñoca or Perrito Coldero, among others, had his stamp: "I had been designing my project in my head for a long time."

Her dream.

And it was time to shape it.

At first, Ovillo was open from Monday to Friday at noon.

For dinners only on Thursdays and Fridays.

On Saturday the bar was shining.

The Covid has disrupted this scheme, like so many others.

"Now we work from Monday to Saturday in lunch and dinner service (they close Monday and Tuesday nights and the entire Sunday) with rotating shifts. I want my team to reconcile its professional and personal aspects also now".

He is obsessed (in the best of senses) that his people have life outside the restaurant

.

Her team, initially made up of 25 people and now 10, has their 30-day vacation and they have two a week.

Muñoz-Calero's is an "honest cuisine": product, flavor and tradition.

When he told his colleagues about his project, they told him that he was crazy, that Ball was

a utopia

.

"Maybe it is, but if I didn't try I would never know if that's the case or not," he explains with some sarcasm in his tone.

Located in an old leather goods factory, the

careful decoration

also bears the stamp of this bad student who found his future in the kitchen.

He assures that his first solo project is a way of giving back to society much of what he has given him.

And every detail, a declaration of (good) intentions.

Starting with his team, a tower of Babel with a thousand and one story to which more admirable.

Hand in hand with the NGO Raíces and the Cocina Conciencia program

, he has been opening the doors of his 'home' to kids who have never had it easy, young Spaniards and foreigners between 16 and 25 years old without adult references in Spain or in a situation of vulnerability.

"They are 70% of the staff," he says.

He and the remaining 30% of the team are trained so that their future looks more optimistic.

"The client can also be reeducated."

Those tears that escaped him while driving on the Castellana were accompanied by stress, impotence and grief and also by

fear of forgetting a job

that had given him so much.

"I had managed to be an executive chef, a position that I don't like at all, by the way. And I was forgetting to cook."

Wool ball.

Pantoja, 8. Phones: 91 737 33 90/627 823 866.

Another of Ovillo's spaces.

According to the criteria of

Know more

Comments

This news has no comments yet

Be the first in give your opinion

0 comments