Perhaps it was expected that some would give clues about the next casual formats, another about healthier tasting menus or, perhaps, someone about the latest wave in culinary creativity. But, in case anyone doubted it, nine great chefs confirm that the sector is changing and that the next gastronomic trends are moving towards pampering the team, rationalizing working days, better organizing restaurants, relaxing room service and even doing more self-criticism. Objective? Facing a hospitality market with new actors, young people stomping, diners demanding flexibility in the offer, more festive appointments at the table and businesses whose sex appeal is their attachment to the territory. We caught them at the Basque Culinary Center, a gastronomy faculty created in 2011 in San Sebastian, during Los Diálogos de Cocina 2023, a sui generis congress co-organized with Mugaritz and the Euro-Toques chef association.
Lucia Freitas
From A Tafona, his Michelin star in Santiago de Compostela, he believes that "gastronomy is boiling, in full boil, after being anchored in that old school based on hierarchies. Now, the industry has realized that there are other languages and other ways of doing things to keep teams happy. For me, the team is more important than the client", argues the Galician chef, for whom this approach influences the configuration of the offer of a restaurant. "If the equipment is relevant, you can't have a menu that requires staff to be working 14 hours. Not everything goes; We have to think about viable dishes when creating the tasting menu and that economically the business also has to be viable. You can't curl the curl for the ego."
Diego Guerrero
The owner of the two-star DSTAgE believes that "we are in a moment of strong changes and it is difficult to distinguish a clear trend. It's a messy phase." This Basque based in Madrid distinguishes two trends. One is "a gastronomy with more awareness that includes conciliation, search for 40-hour days, equality in teams and sustainability; This is a well-worn term, but you are seeing that it is not only an attitude from an environmental point of view, but more holistic that encompasses teams." And, two, the hospitality market is in full boil: "The disorder is noticeable and more in the big cities, where the important groups have burst with force; It is impossible that the high rate of openings and closures of premises does not affect the gastronomic ecosystem".
Macarena de Castro
At the head of the DCastro family group and with Maca de Castro as her mother house with a star, the Mallorcan chef identifies a trend that is a challenge: "We have to accompany young people a lot and bet on them so that they find a profession that we discovered 25 years ago. There are a lot of good young people who want to grow, but it's not just going to work and doing your eight hours. We must motivate them to believe in what they are doing, without pampering them," he reflects. And he adds another trend: "The kitchen will be less and less to take a recipe or technique and create a dish; The important thing is to grow the team in more linear and less hierarchical structures, with us working alongside us so that they have us as a reference. But because they see us in the restaurant and not in the networks." In his opinion, "the sector is changing a lot and we have to be prepared."
Dabiz Muñoz
UniverXO is the Madrid chef's group, with Cristina Pedroche as president, which has four Michelin stars between DiverXO and RavioXO and other brands such as StreetXO and GoXO. "We could not function without a business organization, with which we have attracted talent outside the restaurants that makes us better. It's a trend: external talent helps a restaurant organize itself as a business." In his office, 16 professionals are in charge of finance, marketing and operations and, for Muñoz, that is the future of hoteliers when they grow up. In addition, it identifies a role for its subsector: "The last stronghold is haute cuisine; Our duty is to constantly ask ourselves questions; We have more and more knowledge and yet we continue to eat badly. We go to the supermarket and we're not sure what we eat."
Vicky Sevilla
This chef with a star, who is barely in her thirties and started with Arrels in Sagunto at the age of 25, sees a greater closeness with the client in the room. "I think the service is being uncorseted. The client increasingly values the close treatment; Professional but without so much distance or, perhaps, not as cold as it was previously sought in restaurants. It seems to me that this is something that is changing," says Sevilla. He defends models like his, where "we shorten schedules and improve conditions, with a capacity with fewer cutlery to do things better and with the dynamics of respecting closing times and making the client understand that he cannot extend the desktop to avoid very long days to the team. There is a turning point for the public to value our work a little more."
Andoni Luis Aduriz
The chef and owner of Mugaritz (Renteria), within IXO Grupo (for many one of the most creative restaurants in the world), begins by clarifying that "there are many forms of haute cuisine". At a time of announcement of closures of large projects such as the Danish Noma, Aduriz believes that "chefs are rethinking something that goes hand in hand with what society itself asks. Many things are changing, but for the better. When people say that haute cuisine is in crisis and is ending, I don't think that's the case. Rather it ends within one. There will always be creativity, because it is a condition of the human species. It's not all made up! Haute cuisine is not going to end, but it is going to mutate and will continue to make perfect sense as long as it generates illusion in us". At the same time, he defends that "new people who come to gastronomy are hungry for knowledge".
Edorta Lamo
He says that he lives "secluded and submerged in the mountains" and in his town, Campezo (Álava), "I do not have the relationship that someone from Madrid could maintain with what is happening in restaurants," he confesses; but shoots: "With what I headed when I opened Arrea! I think it is now a trend: to make a proposal based on the territory that allows the client to travel to a place to experience something that only happens there, try and know products from the area, giving them a name and surname. Lera does it and many young chefs are supporting that line," says this rural chef with a star. At the same time, it identifies a need for more flexible offerings. "I think customers are bored of static menus that become eternal and appreciate a concept like ours, with one based on an initial snack to share with a festive character and then choose three among seven passes. The customer should be able to choose what and how much they want to eat in a format with less corseting."
Samy Ali
After closing La Candela Restò in 2018, where he wore a star, Samy opened Doppelgänger in 2020 in a stall in the Antón Martín Market. He calls on the sector "to criticize the established, the supposedly good, innovative and creative, to try to change things. I don't know if it's a real trend, but it's the one I wish there was," he says. "We should look at what we each want to change; That forces us to be critical. The reality is that there is something that does not work: there are many offers and speeches, but you have to be more humble and less egomaniacal, question things and adapt it to each business. Do we want the next batch of chefs to have us on a poster? Is that the goal? If it were that way it would be a terrible thing! We will have to apply creativity to organize ourselves better, demand more and massage less."
Nino Redruello
Visible face of Familia La Ancha, a group with restaurants such as Fismuler, The Omar or the cocktail bar-piano bar Hijos de Tomás, gives clues about restaurant styles. "There is a clear tendency to the artisan, to that chef who sets up his small European neobistro style restaurant; It takes a few years and continues to grow, "observes the Madrid hotelier, who adds more currents to count. "There is a tendency to theming, style to what Albert Adrià did many years ago; and, at the same time, another to very festive restaurants, which are the result of the pandemic, since the client wants to enjoy while dining. Restaurants are acclimating to that market demand. We have been hooked that music should excite the customer just as the sauce of a recipe should work."
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Learn more