It was a relaxed chat with Ignacio Medina, who received a sincere appreciation on behalf of the Asturian chef, recognising his gastronomic journalistic work, “thanks to people like you, I have become far better”. José Andrés left school at an early age, and although he knew that what he wanted was to tell stories, “I didn’t know how to write, nor work in ceramics, things like that. So that the way to express myself was to open businesses in which I could form a part of in first person, and what I did know about was cooking and TV”, he recalled. After all these years of profession, it is clear to him that “any relationship with gastronomy has to be developed with true passion, because we tell our stories in every dish, in every, wine, in every product we work with”.

He has just celebrated 30 years from his first opening as head chef, and recalls how poorly prepared he was to perform that role. Thus, he understood that a good team which covers your shortcomings enables you to develop your true vocation and talent. “We are a sum of the people who we have around us”, he stated amid applause. Naming close collaborators such as Nicolás López, culinary director of Little Spain Market in New York; the director of Jaleo Ramón Martínez and his right hand in ThinkFoodGroup Carles Tejedor, he argued that in a business one has to cover every angle well, “because if I have a creative restaurant that doesn’t pay the bills, it’s useless”.

Promoting Spanish product is key

When he decided to prepare Spanish cuisine beyond our borders, he thought he was as good at the products he had, but soon realised that it was key to have good Spanish products. This is why he has praised the figure of important merchant exporters who have managed, with effort and work, to internationalise the presence of some of them. “We owe Santiago Marín getting the approval of two pig slaughterhouses in USA and Japan, and Valencian Rafael Vidal for his effort in universalising paella. I have managed to be a better chef thanks to producers such as them; Spanish gastronomy owes them an eternity”, he confirmed.
And talking about promotion, and of paella, he referred to the Wikipaella.com project, “created by a few madmen from Valencia who are attempting to educate people about what is and what is not a good paella, and promote its virtues outside Spain”. These are the same people who have developed a paella pan emoji for smartphones, and is the first emoji of a Spanish dish in history. “The great thing about our profession is the possibility of doing things outside the kitchen, looking for other scenarios and other activities”, he asserted, highlighting the day on which the members of the space station tasted Iberian Ham and paella for the first time.

Improve the world through gastronomy

Another one of the stages in which José Andrés has carried out his profession is in solidarity, leading the World Central Kitchen project with which he distributes food to populations affected by war or natural disasters, and for which he received the Princess of Asturias Concord Prize. It’s hard for me to accept that I offer menus at 300 dollars in New York, and 100 meters from the restaurant there are people who go hungry. That is why I look for Trojan horses who enable me to unite both realities, and make gastronomy become an agent for change”, he assures, encouraging his colleagues to, without any pressure, always find a way to influence their community in order to achieve small changes to make this world a little better.

He left by making the auditorium stand to applaud to the honourees of this edition of Gastronomika, Ferrán Adriá “who has given us everything” and the Arbelaitz brothers, “to whom I give a heartfelt thanks to how they treated my father, tireless diner at the Zuberoa during the last few years of his life”, as well as Juan Mari Arzak “who showed me what generosity means”.