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Quique Dacosta captures all his 'revolutionary' colleagues on the stage of Madrid Fusión. Rodrigo Díaz
Tribute to the Pioneers of the Spanish Culinary Revolution

Tribute to the Pioneers of the Spanish Culinary Revolution

Thirty years ago, Spanish chefs stormed the heights of haute cuisine, paving the way for a brilliant generation of successors. The great architects of change believe the future is secure thanks to young talent in the kitchen.

Miguel Lorenci

Madrid

Martes, 28 de enero 2025, 15:35

Madrid Fusión Alimentos de España celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the unexpected and brilliant Spanish gastronomic revolution that "astonished the world," according to the event's motto. The 23rd edition brought together many of its protagonists at the pinnacle of the great gastronomic event. A "nameless revolution," as José Carlos Capel, founder of Madrid Fusión, described it, since definitions like 'molecular cuisine', 'new Spanish cuisine', 'conceptual cuisine', or 'new nouvelle cuisine' did not take hold.

In a country without a tradition of haute cuisine, "it was a revolution without a Bastille takeover," said Benjamín Lana, president of Vocento Gastronomía and moderator of the event with Capel. "There won't be another revolution in the short term, but the future is promising thanks to new talents," said Capel, who reviewed the long history of a movement that took off in 1992, a decade before the arrival of Madrid Fusión, and made Spain the world's leading power in haute cuisine.

Benjamín Lana called Albert and Ferrán Adrià, the flag-bearer of this revolution, to the stage. "Today is a day to celebrate and set aside all the big problems we've had, like in all families, because we are a family," said the genius of El Bulli.

"We shouldn't seek the revolution, nor obsess over another; we must consolidate it. Revolutions aren't planned, they happen," he added. For him, the key to the revolution was "the happiness I felt with my work" and he advises "not to make dramas." "These thirty years are a starting point, not the end of a revolution," he summarized.

Adrià expressed gratitude to Pedro Subijana and Juan Mari Arzak "who had the power to stop this revolution but joined in and became our mirror."

New Rules

"The revolution changed the rules of cooking and the way it is understood, with a cry of freedom and rebellion," said Capel, who debated with Rafael García Santos, Marco Bolasco, Pau Arenós, and Lisa Abenb, who shared their vision of that miracle where rebellion and the will to change were vital.

"With the hunger to learn, we became the world's leading gastronomic power," summarized García Santos. "It was a revolution that changed the world," assured Lisa Abenb, who spent a whole year at El Bulli to write a book. "This revolution will only remain if someone tells it," said Arenós. For Marco Bolasco, it was "the Schengen of cuisine."

For Toni Sagarra, a publicist and creativity genius, "the important thing about revolutions are the consequences, and the chefs' revolution is evolving towards new things." "This revolution made us the leading power in world haute cuisine. What France once was in cooking, Spain is now, and that is an undeniable truth," he summarized.

The stage ended up filled with revolutionaries wearing the Madrid Fusión t-shirt, including Andoni Luis Aduriz, Quique Dacosta, Joan Roca, Carme Ruscalleda, Dani García, Massimo Bottura, Gastón Acurio, Yohishiro Narisawa, Heston Blumenthal, Aitor Arregui, Ángel León, Cristóbal Muñoz, David Seijas, Elena Arzak, Martín Berasategui, Pablo Torreblanca, Ricard Camarena, and about twenty more colleagues.

In a technological feat, everything said in the long debate was collected in a book that will be printed this Thursday.

Three Wonderful Decades

Ferran Adrià led that culinary revolution from the helm of El Bulli, his legendary restaurant in the secluded Mont Roig cove, now a museum. It was the epicenter of the transformation and the engine of a revolution comparable, for some, to the one led a century earlier by the Frenchman Georges Auguste Escoffier, or the one experienced in the second half of the century with the French 'nouvelle cuisine', led by culinary geniuses like Paul Bocuse or Michel Bras.

The Restaurant Magazine was the international springboard for this phenomenon, choosing El Bulli as the best restaurant in the world in 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, and second in 2003, 2005, and 2010. The New York Times contributed to the phenomenon by dedicating the cover of its Sunday magazine to Adrià's restaurant in 2003 with the report 'The New Nouvelle Cuisine' and subtitled 'How Spain Became the New France'.

The other focal points of this phenomenon were in the Basque Country, with chefs like Juan Mari Arzak or Pedro Subijana encouraging and not confronting the new Basque cuisine. In Girona, the Roca family and their legendary Celler de Can Roca climbed to the top spot in The Restaurant Magazine's ranking in 2023 and 2015 and second in 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018.

The ripple effect filled Spain with brilliant chefs leading restaurants with stars and suns in the most relevant guides -Ángel León, Pepe Solla, Dabiz Muñoz, and an endless etcetera-. Their heirs are today restaurants like Barcelona's Disfrutar, winner of the title of best in the world in last year's edition.

The future is hopeful for almost everyone present, despite being in the air, and according to almost all speakers, perhaps at the mercy of Artificial Intelligence, but with the next generations assured.

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