Vegetarian restaurants: when not serving meat was insane

Gastronomy

Artemisa Restaurant (Madrid).

The owners of two veteran vegetarian dining rooms in Madrid remember the beginnings of green cuisine on International Vegetarian Day

La Biótika, founded in 1978, and Artemisa, in 1990, are two classics of this type of gastronomy that have managed to maintain and adapt to the boom of veggie fever.

It seems clear: the green kitchen is in fashion.

If today one enters "vegetarian dining rooms in Madrid" in a restaurant search engine, the result, depending on the web, reaches at least 50 names.

But that is today, October 1, 2020, baptized as

because 30 and 40 years ago they were nothing more than an

, with a symbolic presence.

However, this October 1, two of those

continue to be active (the late La Galette remains in memory, another advance who, without being a vegetarian, began to offer green dishes), even in spite of the pandemic:

, a restaurant-shop specializing in macrobiotic and vegetable cuisine, founded in 1978 (Amor de Dios, 3), and

, a veteran vegetarian from the capital who, in 1990, was started by the Castro brothers (Ventura de la Vega, 4 and Three Crosses, 4).

"This type of cuisine is experiencing a boom, not only because more and more vegetarian and vegan dining rooms are opening, but because almost all establishments have

on their menus

", explains Óscar Castro (León, 1958).

Who caught these times, seems to think this naturopathic doctor, dietician and nutritionist, vegetarian since he was 19 years old, who one day made a virtue of necessity and, tired of the French omelette and the salad of lettuce, tomato and onion that he used to eat when He was leaving for Madrid, he decided to open, together with one of his brothers, a

.

"I knew several in Barcelona and did not understand how here, in the capital of Spain, the offer was almost non-existent. And I began to think about it. I was good at cooking and had many recipes of my own. Apparently it was crazy, because neither my family nor I came from the world of catering, but I decided to set up a vegetarian as God intended and

", Castro recalls.

The Persian cake is one of the classics of the Artemis menu.

Balanced and rich cuisine

And soon everything began to get in his face.

"We opened

in Ventura de la Vega, in May 1990 and, with the help of Paolo, a young chef who ended up being our chef, we prepared the menu, with my dishes. Today you can find thousands of recipes on the Internet, but It hadn't arrived in Spain at the time. Each proposal was made with a combination of proteins, minerals ... Everything

. "

Thus, while Madrilenians were curious to attend the first broadcasts of private television, "they talked about sex" with Elena Ochoa thanks to her now legendary program, they saw an adolescent Penélope Cruz present

and they hummed the

with which Azúcar Moreno had conquered the fifth place in Eurovision, Oscar insisted on surprising the capital diner.

And he succeeded: "A restaurant without meat? It was something new,

, a bombshell. Every noon there was a queue in the street to enter, people asked for the time ...".

He also remembers how some

-Ventura de la Vega has always been a street of restaurants-, did not predict much future for them: "

, the most positive ones gave us a month. But we came to stay and cover, in my opinion, a void ".

A year later, together with his three brothers, Sara, Antonio and Fernando, they inaugurated the Artemisa de Gran Vía [which will reopen its doors shortly].

The Castro brothers, owners of Artemisa restaurants.

The restaurant scene was changing and more restaurants were opening in a green key ... And the long crisis of 2008 arose ... "which affected us all for years and from which we have recently left.

... which has left us mired in concern and uncertainty about what will happen, "Castro added.

Among the most veggies

Time has passed and "vegetarian cuisine - adds the owner of Artemisa - is no longer a matter of four crazy people."

There are studies that even place

(for example, the one carried out in 2019 by the Lantern consultancy on food and the growth of the vegetable trend), while the hotel offer for flexitarians (in a way occasionally they eat some meat and fish), vegetarians, vegans, raw vegans, macrobiotics ... it grows with the common thread of

cuisine

.

"You have to evolve ... Now, half of our menu is vegan and, for three years,

. A balanced cuisine that leaves you satisfied and above all is very tasty. This has always been our goal: a vegetarian that fits everyone, one more culinary option ".

A proposal in which recipes elaborated with care continue to triumph, such as salads,

, which has nothing to do with those fried aubergines that his mother made him when, he made 40 years old, he told her that he no longer ate meat.

"Imagine, my poor mother, what could she know about vegetarianism then."

Jesús Martín, in his restaurant-store La Biótika.

His mother and the vast majority of Spaniards.

And that was the panorama that

grappled with a little over four decades

, a house that was

.

It was a small dining room with a shop founded by eight friends, who after leaving yoga classes "thought they should contribute something positive to raise awareness in Madrid about the

. Thus, when they realized that there was no no vegetarian, it occurred to them to start one,

"explains

of the establishment.

Raising awareness in 1978

"Talking about balanced and green food in a country that had just come out of the dictatorship and saying, after years of poverty, that it was better not to eat meat ...? Yes, it is clear that, from what the founding partners told me It was a risky project, "says Jesús, who is accompanied by his wife,

, director of La Biótika, head of the kitchen and head of the oriental philosophies courses taught by the establishment.

"When they started," Jesus recalls, "almost nothing was known about that world. A vegetarian eater was a bit crazy. But, curiously,

. Being so different, people wanted to know him, even there were queues to get in ... Characters from the artistic world came -we were in the middle of the

, for example, Pedro Almodóvar and his people ate or dined there ... It was very successful because in the 80s there were no similar places. Well, before there were some, like Sésamo and Sal, that closed right away, "he explains.

Dish from La Biótika's macrobiotic menu: chickpea stew, brown rice with seeds, cauliflower tempura and steamed carrots.

Over time, Jesus became a witness: "I lived on the same street as La Biótika and we were cross customers.

. Part of it, they came to the graphic design agency that we had to print the menus, the letters, the business cards ... ".

The relationship continued for years and was so close that,

with which the establishment had been founded.

"We kept the original idea, but we chose to give it more dynamism and freshness; we

and incorporated new products, not everyone knew about tofu, seitan, seaweed, sprouts ...", Jesus points out.

Today, things have changed, and whether by betting on an environmentalist life and respect for animals or a

life

, it seems that we suffer

fever

.

Something that Jesus, as a convinced vegetarian, considers positive.

"It is good that it has prospered and that more and more sites are being opened. The boom began in 2010 and there have been different moments. For example, macrobiotics has had times of great diffusion, either because some famous people had declared that they followed a

... well because some people saw in her a way to heal. Macrobiotic means long life, "he says.

Dish from La Biótika's vegetarian menu: whole wheat basmati rice and seeds, with ginger tofu and baked pumpkin.

Adapt to the times

Since its origins, La Biótika has always been a macro-vegetarian restaurant, "but before it was more austere, with a lot of cereal, no dairy products, the minimum raw possible ... When we took over, we expanded the proposal more towards the vegetarian world, which It gave us

and we opted to offer two types of menu: one vegetarian and the other macrobiotic, "recalls Jesús Martín.

"Now, we have four menus: the

, with proposals such as miso soup, vegetable cream, salads, soy, tofu or seitan fillet, risotto, millet cake, vegetable wok ...; the

, with the necessary daily proportions of cereals (carbohydrates), vegetables (vitamins and minerals) and legumes and nuts (proteins); the

, which includes the first and second although in smaller quantities, and the

, such as the macrobiotic but with different proportions and aimed at people who know this type of cuisine well ".

And it continues: "Four healthy menus, designed to

, and very rich".

Adaptation to the present also went through the expansion of the establishment.

"Originally, you entered the dining room through a small shop. Over time, we got the place next door and now they are independent."

In addition to the dining room and the ecothop, they have an

, where seminars are given - "something that has been done since the restaurant was founded," Martín points out - and

and feng shui

, among others.

"And it is that for us it is a philosophy of life," says Jesus.

What if we look again in a restaurant search engine?

Surely Artemisa and La Biótika are still there, those two

that continue with their doors wide open.

Shu-Yuan Chen and Jesús Martín, co-owners of La Biótika.

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