Do we confuse value with price when it comes to the product?
-Quique Dacosta: Yes, value is a “gastronomic value”. Price doesn’t determine gastronomic value, it measures many things like supply, demand, scarcity… Even as a place, Dénia is not the same as Ibiza.
-Rafa Zafra: At El Bulli, we give the same importance to mackerel in season as much as shrimp.
-The product now looks more valuable than ever. What is this for?
-QD: The product is cooked in all restaurants. It doesn’t matter if it is a restaurant or bar counter where mussels or mussels are cooked, after all, the product is our color palette. What has changed is the physical relevance to the product.
What has changed is the figurative representation before the crayfish was cooked, but now with greater visibility, ventresca was taught.
-RZ: I think now this type of cuisine has also become very professional, sometimes applying high culinary knowledge.
-What is your favorite product?
-RZ: Red shrimp from Dénia. Power, intensity. The last flavor I want to take with me before I die is the taste of a shrimp from Dénia. She is the maiden of gastronomy because it is always better to accompany alone. I also love hedgehogs, but they admit to cooking more.
-QD: Salt for me. It is the essence of the sea and civilization with its healing products and method of protection, which is closely related to the Mediterranean.
More from the Mediterranean or the Atlantic?
QD: Why “or” and not “and”. I have a feeling that we have restaurants in the Mediterranean, people come looking for it and I feel very comfortable looking for local products, but it seems to me that the Bay of Biscay has an extraordinary product.
-RZ: I believe in the Mediterranean as a lifestyle: to share, to have fun… and I spend a lot of Mediterranean products, but I look at the Bay of Biscay, Galicia, Huelva… We get 70% of it from the Mediterranean but the other 30%’ he is a guest.
-The product is auctioned every day in markets, markets and WhatsApp groups of wholesalers. Who takes the cat to the water, who pays the most, pays first or is the most famous?
-RZ: There are suppliers who are interested in being in certain restaurants, but for a restaurant to work you need to know how to buy, manipulate and sell. The most important thing is to know how to buy. You have to be heavy, demand it.
-QD: Selling to Estimar is important, but I believe there should be matching between customer and supplier. Some sell me a little cheaper because I’m constantly buying, paying daily. We take care of each other. This interests me more than marketing.
-We are talking about very expensive products that perish very quickly, such as shrimp, lobster or crayfish. How to manage the pantry of a produce restaurant to avoid damage?
-RZ: We know what to sell. We don’t have cameras in Estimar Madrid and Barcelona. We fill it every day and we are clear that we are selling what we bought. At Jondal, where we gave 300, we learned that you need to manipulate to sell or save.
Quique Dacosta: “We must respect bans and prohibited products”
–When we talk about the product, are we reducing the interest in fish and shellfish too much?
-QD: It seems obvious if you look at me because my world has always been vegetables and the sea. When we brought Bittor Arginzoniz, we tried to make a call about this and explain that Llisa Negra also cooks meat and vegetables.
-RZ: I think vegetables are much more valuable now because you expect seasonality. We are waiting for the artichokes, which is the time of the white asparagus.
-Does Size Matter?
-QD: It has a lot to do with the visual. The image of a very small octopus, a very large Norwegian lobster… The customer also needs to be informed. Peas should be small, but shrimp should not reach 70 grams, but 40 grams is better.
-RZ: But the fish can’t be 800 grams. 2.5 kilos of shield is better than kilos.
-Can creative cooking be done without losing the product personality?
-RZ: I guess.
-QD: I’m sure it is. For example, what Rafa does at Estimar is creative cuisine. I see one of his dishes and I know him, and if there is anyone in Galicia who is imitating him, I see that he is imitating it. Next, the signature cuisine.
-Is it easier to find someone who doesn’t spoil a Norwegian lobster than to be a rice cooker or the chef of a gastronomic restaurant?
-RZ: Well, more precision is needed, which is not easy.
-QD: In Llisa Negra, I have a higher cook rate per customer than other restaurants.
– Once private and almost secret, caviar is now popping up on Instagram as much as truffle. What is this for?
-RZ: We like to feed the customer’s ego. I’m excited with the fried anchovies but if they’re happy with the caviar we give it to them. And then it’s true that the prices have dropped, we’re working with a very good one, but there are more affordable ones.
– What do you think of farmed fish?
-QD: Everything is there, all that matters is that they are good and the job is done well. If we expect the whole world to be fed only with fish in the sea, we will finish everything in a short time.
-RZ: Not everyone can buy sea bream.
-Do you use them?
-RZ: I don’t want to.
-QD: It’s not in Dénia, but I have a restaurant where I can serve sea bass or whatever.
Quique Dacosta: “I like to take products from the fish market and add gastronomic value to them, this is our mission”
–How about a troll hunt?
-QD: I don’t have enough arguments to give an opinion.
-RZ: There’s more respect in the drag, more bans, and a lot of mentalization to make things better.
-Is using scrap a way to value all fish or a way to encourage non-selective fishing?
-QD: I like to take products from the fish market and add gastronomic value to them, and if we manage to value them, then that is our mission. I used to get the duck prawns for 7 Euros, now it’s 27 after working on dishes like almond tree. People see you buy it, are interested and start to value it.
– Is lobster or olive curing more profitable?
-RZ: There were 40 people in the kitchen at Tickets, the manpower you need for this type of kitchen is impressive.
-What would you say if I told you about three restaurants serving sea dates in the community?
-QD: The product prohibition must be obeyed and prohibited where there is, or the endangered products should not be touched.
-RZ: Sure, but not as a cook, but as a restaurant. When we sit down at the table and they offer us these, we have to say no.
-Embers are fashionable. Do they fit the product?
-RZ: It is a tool that can work with information. But I think the best technique is fried.
Source: Informacion
