Quique Dacosta: "We are the sum of many mistakes"

• OPENING The chefs of Cañitas Maite take their cuisine of essence and product to Cebo, the Michelin star of the Urban

• PAN Nuño García, the Michelin pastry chef who preferred to open a small bakery in a neighborhood in the south of Madrid

Red prawn, rice, vegetables... Ten were the flavors that chef and businessman

(Jarandilla de la Vega, 1972), chef with three Michelin stars, considered when he accepted "the challenge" of Lay's Gourmet to select three of his elaborations to merge them with the brand's crisps and celebrate "

s". Finally, the essence of haute cuisine is poured into the national appetizer par excellence with three new varieties: truffled egg with potato cream, wood-roasted red pepper and braised sirloin with caramelized onion. "These new flavors are the the result of an extensive creative and R&D process.

The result is a perfect balance of flavor in each potato, reminiscent of each of the culinary creations they are inspired by," says Dacosta, who continues to seek perfection, but without obsessing over it. "Everything in my life has been always trying to balance everything", he confesses.

Do you have a favorite appetizer? I am very bad at getting into dogmas that condition me

.

I have always done this, even with questions like "What is your favorite dish?"

or "What are your favorite ingredients?"

I believe in the "favorite snack" depending on the time of day.

We changed a lot, we transformed a lot.

It is not the same at seven in the evening as after.

Because what is clear is that the aperitif is versatile: it can be eaten at 10 in the morning, at 12 or at 6 in the afternoon.

Even after dinner, in the second glass, you can have an aperitif.

It depends a lot on that.

But I like the potato part as a common thread.

This is not trivial to be presenting the Lays potatoes.

I am interested in the potato as a support, as a medium in which to even make montaditos: potato and mussel, potato and ham.

I really like that dichotomy in which he can live.

For example, a glass of rosé cava has just appeared.

Well, here maybe I'm going to go more for the pepper one, which suits me more.

If I'm having a vermouth with red wine, maybe I'll go for the sirloin with caramelized onions.

I think it also depends on when you are, what you are drinking.

But obviously I am very, very much into an aperitif. In some parts of Spain you eat potatoes with lentils and with spaghetti... With lentils it is more normal [laughs].

I am sure that in Italy there are traditional recipes with spaghetti, pasta with potatoes.

Sure.

Because in the end it's like potato and rice.

Because rice for us is part of a culture and rice goes with everything.

And the pasta... I won't tell you a specific recipe, but hey, I know there are ravioli stuffed with potatoes.

In other words, it is already inserted there in some way.

That may seem exotic to us, or almost a tex-mex from the potato universe, but surely there are recipes like that. Are you bitter that Spain does not have enough industry to retain the talent it trains? Well, not in ours.

There is a lot of industry, jolin!

We are missing.

Spain is a country with a very high potential in the restaurant industry.

Another thing is that the world is much bigger, there are very interesting things that are happening in the world, it is normal for talent to leave.

But no, it is not for lack of industry.

We have many restaurants from all points of the pyramid.

What would I especially like if there were more with three and two Michelin stars?

Yes. But hey,

That is already a request from someone who highly values ​​the work my colleagues do and who wants the best for them too. You who like to communicate with the kitchen. Is there anything you haven't said yet? Yes.

I haven't said yet about next year [laughs]. What's the last thing you burned? In the kitchen, nothing.

For the latter I have to go back very, very, very far back.

See what I was thinking: if I had burned something at home, that there are times when cooking with the children is obviously not as professional as what I do in the restaurant, where I have 25 cooks in the three stars.

Or in the other restaurants the same.

But I have no recollection of burning anything right now. Is there a dish that you don't particularly like to cook but that everyone asks you for? No,

what does resist me and surely I will never go through it is cooking with insects.

But it is a cultural issue.

I value those who know how to cook insects, because they like it for its own sake or because they come from a culture in which it is rooted, such as Latin America or Asia.

But, for me, it's like not knowing how to fight and putting yourself in front of a bull: it's like impossible.

I am not able to face that.

Is it difficult for you to be advised? Not at all.

What I do try is that my imprint, my way of understanding things, my DNA or my form is in the product.

In the end, I cook a lot of things, I don't just cook food.

I'm going to give you a very simple example: I have six books published, I'm about to release the seventh in the next few months and I have two more on the way... Well, the cover.

When you stand on the cover you say: "I know what I want to say, I know what I want to say, I know how to cook that recipe."

For the cover I also want it to have my imprint.

I can ask, but maybe what I propose is not the most interesting, nor the most commercial, nor what gives the most visibility or

have.

So, how can I not let myself be advised?

Luckily, the world is full of great specialists.

The best way to communicate with me is to be a good person.

You can be the best at what you do, but no matter how arrogant you are, when we sit down we talk if there is no

, there is no

, bad. Do you feel identified with what is generally attributed to you: perfectionism, innovation, flavor? Yes.

The taste, totally.

Much.

Innovation is part of my way of understanding life and, obviously, cooking above all.

And perfection is an intention, but not an obsession.

It's not something that drives me crazy about being perfect, cooking perfect, serving perfect, driving perfect... Well, that worries me more [laughs].

What I mean is that perfection has to be a springboard, but not a lever.

It should not be something that obsesses you, that drives you crazy.

We are mistakes.

We are the sum of many mistakes. How do you find the time? I have many agendas.

And the main agendas are work and personal.

I will say that one outweighs the other depending on what kind of thing it is.

But my family has a lot of weight because I am a person where, despite everything, -despite the twelve restaurants, the congresses all over the world, the special things like the one at Lays- in the end, the family is central to me and, especially, in the part of the restaurants.

What I have to be is at the height of my team.

They have chosen me and I have to live up to them. Has good food been established in the family? Yes.

And it's complicated.

In the end we are exploring, we are growing together.

Noa is 14 years old, Ugo is now 12 in November and we are getting to know each other.

When you give your baby a spoonful, he doesn't say anything: he spits, or closes his mouth, or cries, but that's as far as they go.

But now they show up.

Noa is a gourmet and Ugo is a gourmand, they are two identities that we have had clear from the beginning.

But in that own evolution -Ugo doesn't like fish, Noa likes prawns, barnacles, she likes everything- they've been around for two months where, for whatever reason, there has been a click that I've missed and now They love Japanese cuisine.

And, suddenly, I see my son who was not even good for God with fish, I see him eat nigiris with salmon, with eel and I "What?!".

The other day he pushed me back a few

because I didn't want them broths, I wanted them drier, more sautéed.

And when I gave them to him he blurted out "Now they're on point."

what a kid!

But it is not easy.

You have to be insistent.

More than being gourmets, I want them to eat healthy and varied.

Then the other comes.

When I was 14 years old, when I got into the kitchen, I had no gastronomic interest.

It fed me and what I wanted was for it to be tasty, but surely I ate spaghetti with tomato more often than pottage, for sure.

Then you adapt and you mold yourself, you grow.

As children you don't like bitters: you don't like coffee, you don't like tonic water.

Then we are lovers of coffee and tonic.

The flavors are evolving.

There are more adult flavors and more childish flavors. Any gastronomic guilty pleasure confessed? The potatoes that I have made with Lays.

They're very good.

And they are bag in hand.

Literal.

Because they also smell, they are potatoes that smell.

You have them in the bag and they smell.

We will see your reception.

They are a confessed pleasure like trinkets.

What happens is that I like them but I eat very few.

I eat three little liquorices, I don't eat a bag.

Everything in my life I think has been trying to always balance.

I run, I play sports, but I don't want to win a marathon: I want to maintain a routine.

I cook, and I want to be good in the kitchen out of respect for my clients, but I don't obsess over number ones.

I've already been number one twice on two different lists, three Michelin stars, an honorary doctorate, a gold medal for Fine Arts... But I'm not obsessed with these things.

In life you have to balance, you have to balance.

And there is no need to rush.

Things, if you work tenaciously,

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