A little over a month has passed and he still has not assumed it.
Of course, he has not had time either, because, two weeks later, his restaurant was temporarily closed due to the new restrictions in Castilla-La Mancha due to Covid.
He is
Carlos Maldonado
(Talavera de la Reina, Toledo, 1990) and the restaurant,
Raíces
(Ronda del Cañillo, 3, in Talavera), a brand new
Michelin star
, which - despite the provisional closure - has
reservations for three months
.
And it is that the red guide "has given us a lot of oxygen", he acknowledges.
"Professionally, 2020 was a
disastrous year
. But the end has been spectacular. The guide has given us a great hand. It has been crazy and
people have responded great
."
Carlos - self-taught, atypical or "weird" chef, as he likes to define himself - talks about work and courage to get ahead and, although you have to be proactive about the future, he prefers to
live in the present
, what he has now.
To this smiling, close, passionate, committed and grateful chef, his
vocation
came more or less late and almost out of
sports necessity
.
"I trained a lot and needed a specific diet, so I went around the dishes to eat
deliciously
. I had cook friends, like
Iván Serrano
and
José Carlos Fuentes
[today at El Club Allard] who worked in the restaurant of the Valdepalacios hotel (in Torrico, Toledo) ".
He continues: "One day, José Carlos, who was the first chef who scolded me, told me to go with him. At first, I washed dishes, then I made salads and later I stayed a month in the bistro ... I liked it that point of tension and stress that you experience in a professional kitchen ".
In those he was when "the Jenny", his mother, pointed him to
MasterChef 3
.
The
culinary
talent
gained
, she already told him, and the kitchen bug entered her.
"You are trying and you are realizing that it is infinite, that the
more you learn, the less you know
... It is such a wide and abstract world, with so much room for
creativity
, that it makes you feel free. That makes me feel free. feel at ease. "
The Roots room, in Talavera de la Reina (Toledo).
'Food Truck'
Trained at the
Basque Culinary Center
, he returned to television (
Cooks at the wheel
).
He toured Spain in a
food truck
selling hamburgers
with two friends who today are "my right hand and my left hand in Raíces" and, what was to be the central kitchen of that business, ended up becoming, in 2017, a gastronomic restaurant, business that was on the verge of not reopening after confinement.
"We caught him in full
reform of the local
. He spent time and unbilled, numbers
desmadraban
. We
were at 15 days of closing, me
I raised not reopen
... We were in the shit ,
" he admits.
And the lifeguard arrived:
El Círculo
, a hamburger restaurant with delivery that was born within Raíces - today it has its own space in Carlos Barral, 1- and that he set up with the support of his team.
"
Without them I would not have left
and without the support of Talavera, who turned a thousand percent, either".
-And in December more
oxygen
arrives
in the form of a star.
Three years open and Raíces is already in the red guide.
Meteoric race, right?
-Clear.
Well, I don't know how long it takes to get it ... I still don't know the full meaning of the star.
I've been to Michelin restaurants and they are the fucking masters.
It has always seemed to me that they are
the best
and now they have given me one ... I don't have it assumed, of course.
In any case, we have much to do and
offer
, although I think the guide has understood our concept.
Field rabbit with mole poblano and Manchega flower, tribute to Puebla (Mexico).
-And how is it?
Risky
and slightly groundbreaking.
I love that they have understood such an
abstract and crazy mind as
mine.
They are risky dishes and rooted in my land.
I tell the diner that if he lets me into his palate, I will give him a
piece of my soul
.
-You have dedicated this star to those who have helped you and to those who have tripped you.
Have there been many?
-Yes.
But I understand it.
I was a little
kid
who, after winning a television show, became nationally known.
You come out of there being a
showman
, with a strong image of a cook or even a chef, but
you are not
.
You enter a professional school, surrounded by great teachers, and you meet people who go there to train or update and who have a
curriculum of 10
.
You arrive and say: "Hello, my name is Carlos Maldonado and I have won MasterChef."
How are you not going to receive milk.
That made me put
my feet on the ground
.
A "land" that has become firmer thanks to the day to day in the dining room.
"We are fighters. We have set up a restaurant in a wonderful land, although bureaucratically they have put us a
million obstacles
and perhaps, because we are known, some more. My father already tells me:" Son, you have to learn to swim and save the clothes. "To me, they show me
the cape and I go in
... I've always been like that. I can't stand the political or bureaucratic suckers, maybe that's why they have put so many obstacles on us," he adds.
The Chuches plate.
And enter the cape of the new restrictions in the hospitality industry.
"What is being asked of administrations is to
anticipate
, not to improvise, to be resounding and clear. I am not saying that the measures are not correct, but they cannot say: 'You will close tomorrow', because I expect people from Madrid, from Barcelona, from all sides ... I think they act
improvised
, at least that's what they transmit. "
-What makes you sleepy?
-
Go back to March
of last year, repeat that.
To see how my wife, who is a nurse, returned from her work in Severo Ochoa in Madrid, the sanitary collapse, to see a 3-year-old boy who has almost never seen another child ... Go back to that confinement, what
the monster catches us
.
Those things keep me awake;
Work is what it is, if you put up your courage, you get ahead.
If I have to start
washing dishes or laying plasterboard
, I don't care.
It is true that I have never done so well as now, but my rings do not fall off because I dedicate myself to other things.
Peddling
Carlos "restless ass" has stung in many professions.
Life guard;
vigilant
, although "at night he was afraid";
street vendor of hams, sausages and cheeses, accompanying his father.
Wild boar and bush rice.
"We would go from town to town. When I got tired, I would say to him: 'I have decided that
I am going to study Electromechanics
', it was time for movies with tuned cars. I would start, make balls and get caught, so again for
sale ambulante
... And, soon, I was already with the 'I want to study ...'. My father says that I am a
cataguisaos
, that I have tried everything and that I have never finished anything. Well, yes, I am a senior technician in Animation of Physical and Sports Activities ".
He was bored, he says.
"There are kids who know what they want to be from very early on, I've never been clear about it. What's more, I still don't have it. Now I'm a cook because
I feel comfortable with what I do
, I feel comfortable and
useful
, but who knows what It will pass. They tell me, in a few years
you will be in the elite
... But, what if I'm paving roads ... ".
'Made of clay'
So far, it is clear that theirs is the kitchen, especially now that you
have set the menu
postestrella
,
made of clay
.
A historical, gastronomic and aesthetic nod to Talavera.
"I have designed my own dishes, which they have made with our ceramics."
The storyline of the menu is the traditional, creative, fun,
abstract and unapologetic
cuisine
that Carlos likes, made with products rooted in the land, some
recovered from oblivion
and with a vindictive touch.
Ninyo-yaki with Manchego cheese and cured pork tongue.
"For example, the
hoisin
veneered beans
. A stew of this legume today little known, but present in the Iberian Peninsula even before the discovery of America and that here was an economic engine, with the 'taste fashion' touch of Asian sauce Or the
tribute to the Tagus
, because Talavera was also a land of fishermen, or to Mexico because of the artistic link between
Puebla and Talavera
".
And more dishes: wild boar and bush rice;
velvety eel skin;
cod, ratatouille and eggs;
ninyo-yaki with Manchego cheese and cured pork tongue ...
-And how do you see the future of the hospitality industry?
-Confused and screwed up.
-And yours?
-I have never seen it clearly, I'm going to see it now ... Well, it will have to do with being myself, with doing something with which I feel comfortable and with
being happy
, something easy to say, but difficult to feel , since, like any state of mind, it is temporary.
-If you look back, that Carlos who was a street vendor and has a star today has changed?
-I'm the same kid who sold hams in the towns and, mind you, I feel
nostalgic
for that stage.
I love contact with people, talking with them, sharing a look, an expression.
The
hawking
is Superbonita is friendly.
So why not one day come back?
At the moment, his present is in Raíces, that restaurant that in the beginning caused him more than one
cry
.
"At first, it was chaos, the first day I even lost the orders. Today I laugh, but what I cried ...", he concludes.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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