Speakers

Pedro Subijana

Euskadi

Chef Pedro Subijana is one of the founders of New Basque Cuisine. Since 1975 he has been in charge of Akelarre restaurant, distinguished since 2007 with 3 Michelin stars. His continued devotion to his profession leads him to change the menus at his restaurant every two months, to collaborate with many cooking schools, to participate in TV programs and to publish gastronomy books.

Basque Cuisine with Subijana and Berasategui

"If we join forces we can do many and very important things", says Subijana

Martín Berasategui and Pedro Subijana have gathered around the table to talk about Basque Cuisine. While Berasategui valued the origin of everything, highlighting the essential role of nature, Subijana explained the influences that gastronomy has received in the Basque Country. In addition, Subijana believes in the importance of dignifying the profession and ending individualism.

Speakers

Andoni Luis Aduriz

Euskadi

Admired for his creativity and boldness, Andoni Luis Aduriz (born in San Sebastián in 1971) is undoubtedly one of the most influential chefs in the world. Throughout his career he has intentionally disregarded the conventional boundaries of cooking in his search for intersections with other disciplines, such as music, philosophy, anthropology and natural sciences. At his restaurant Mugaritz, located in a picturesque rural setting in Errenteria (Basque Country), diners encounter a truly fascinating proposal that combines innovation and tradition, cosmopolitan sophistication and the utmost respect for local products. Due to Andoni’s commitment to innovation, Mugaritz closes its doors for a few months every year so he can focus on research and experimentation. Mugaritz, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2018, has received two Michelin stars and has maintained its position among the top 10 of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list since 2006.

Speakers

César Vega

Mexico

Cesar Vega has been the editor-in-chief of The Kitchen as a Laboratory. He studied food engineering in Mexico, holds a master’s degree in food science from the University of Guelph in Canada, a PhD in food science from the University of Cork in Ireland, and a degree in culinary arts from Le Cordon Bleu. In addition, he is research manager at Mars Botanical, a division of Mars, Inc. He regularly teaches seminars on the relationship between science and cooking and acts as a consultant to restaurants.

The perfect ice cream

THE FUSION OF SCIENCE AND CUISINE

Passionate about science, food and cooking, the ice cream formulation expert, Cesar Vega, reveals the foundations of the perfect structure of this food in #GastronomyShapers.

Speakers

Martín Berasategui

Euskadi

As one of the most well-known chefs of Gipuzkoa, Berasategi has received 12 Michelin stars across 7 of his restaurants. He champions Basque cuisine around the world, highlighting the most representative dishes of the region. The chef has been in the profession since he worked at his family restaurant at the age of 15, and since then he has established himself as one the most important chefs in the world. He defines his cuisine as flavourful, but always mindful of the client’s health.  

Basque Cuisine with Subijana and Berasategui

"It is impossible to do anything if we are alone", says Berasategui

Martín Berasategui and Pedro Subijana gathered around the table to talk about Basque Cuisine. While Berasategui valued the origin of everything, highlighting the essential role of nature, Subijana explained the influences that gastronomy has received in the Basque Country.

Speakers

Karissa Becerra

Spain

Cook, writer, designer but, above all, an activist who looks for transforming the relationship we have built since childhood with food. With studies of philosophy and anthropology, Becerra teaches children to think by learning to eat in a conscious way, convinced that in childhood the great changes begin. His most ambitious project is The Revolution, a non-profit association with a catalogue of creative activities aimed at knowing what we eat but also at generating an emotional connection between people and food.With the funds it gathers with these workshops , Becerra is taking food education to low-income schools and is pushing to introduce it into set of subjects of Peruvian public education.

Speakers

Roc Gramona

Spain

Winemaker graduated from the URV. He has worked throughout Spain in different certificate of origin such as Priorat, Montilla or Penedés. He has also worked in other parts of the world such as Portugal, France, the United States or Australia, among others. He is currently director of the Catalan pruning school and manager of R&D at Cavas Gramona.

Speakers

Ramón Morató

Spain

Pastry chef and creative director of Cacao Barry. Studying at the School of the Provincial Confectionery Guild in Barcelona and working all over the world, has allowed him to explore different products of the sweet world and to consolidate his technique. He has won several awards such as Best Master Artisan Pastry 97 or the Award for the Best Book in the World in 2007 on chocolate, among others.

The fact that he has been able to work with professionals from different fields, has given him extense knowledge of the sector, allowing him to discover his passion for teaching, researching and creating sweet products.

Speakers

Paz Levinson

Argentina

Paz Levinson is the current Head Executive Sommelier for the Groupe PIC, from the chef Anne Sophie Pic. Of Argentine origin and training, she has won different awards like A.A.S Best Sommelier of Argentina in 2010 and 2014, A.S.I & A.P.A.S. Best Sommelier of the Americas in 2015 and fourth place in the 2016 A.S.I Best Sommelier of the World Competition, among others. In addition, she is contributing to the knowledge of Argentine wine in international markets and promoting the quality  of these as a Regional Chair for Argentina for the Decanter World Wine Awards.

Speakers

Elena Arzak

Euskadi

Elena Arzak has lived surrounded by a long culinary tradition. Once she completed her training in Switzerland, she worked at some of the most pretigious restaurants of Europe, including El Bulli. She and her father, Juan Mari Arzak, run the restaurant Arzak, which holds 3 michelin stars.

Throughout her career, she has received multiple awards, including the Best Female Chef in the World, awarded by Veuve Clicquot in 2012, highlighting her passion and determination.

The evolution of the Arzak Restaurant

Elena Arzak presents her gastronomic proposal: "Cooking with her own identity, basque, based on research and contemporary".

Chef Elena Arzak conducts a MasterClass to show the evolution of the Arzak Restaurant through its history, its identity and gastronomic offer, its creative vision of the product, and its secrets to delight any palate.

Speakers

Germán Martitegui

Argentina

With a degree in International Relations, Germán studied Culinary Technique in Escuela de Beatriz Chomnalez. Nowadays, he is widely known for his contribution to the New Argentinian Cuisine and his restaurant, TEGUI, the 9th best restaurant of Latin America 50 best Restaurants. By using ingredients from his country and choosing the right techniques and cooking methods, he has put Argentina’s cuisine on the map.

Martitegui is a firm believer in the products of his country, which he displays as the main event in all his dishes, which shine in his first book, published in 2016. On top of that, he initiated PROYECTO TIERRAS, which researches products, producers and ecoregions from Argentina.

Speakers

Enrique Olvera

Mexico

Enrique Olvera is Mexico’s most celebrated chef thanks to his extraordinary talent and charisma. His restaurant Pujol caught the world’s attention by transforming deep-rooted Mexican culinary tradition with a contemporary, sensitive, and authentic focus. At present, Olvera has seven restaurants—including Cosme in New York—, all of which promoting his passion for local products. As an advocate of the simple things, he shies away from pretension and excess. Culture and ecology are part of his narrative: from the cutting-edge complimented with prehispanic methods using nearly extinct native species, to his commitment to sustainable, high-quality products. Olvera has also fought against genetically modified crops, and participates in educational programmes to improve the diets of children in Mexico—a country with one of the world’s highest rates of obesity.

Culture and vanguard

"RESTAURANTS ARE A REFLECTION OF THE CULTURE FROM WHICH THEY COME"

The chef tells his experience with the first restaurant he opened in Mexico, Pujol, which is more than 20 years old and has been growing more and more. “Its cuisine is always changing, with ideas from everywhere,” says Olvera in #GastronomyShapers, who maintains that it is important to be in constant innovation.

Speakers

Renato Giovannoni

Argentina

Tato is a renaissance man, bartender, singer, painter, soccer player and artist. Born and raised by the sea , close to Buenos Aires, he started working at his fathers restaurant at 12, and his relation with the pleasures of food and drinks continues to this day. Giovannoni is the most celebrated bartender of Latin America and a true ambassador for argentina. He has worked as a cocktail consultant around the world and came home to open the highly respected Florería Atlántico that remains the only south american bar in Drinks International Best 50 bars in the world.

Dreams and flavors

"I CONSIDER MYSELF A DREAMER"

The entrepreneurial creator of Florería Atlántico who has been chosen best bartender in the world, Tato Giovannoni, shares his inspiring career journey of dreams and flavors with BCC students at #GastronomyShapers. He thanks his family: “I had an academic mother who taught me the value of studying”.

Speakers

Joan Roca

Spain

Joan Roca was raised in the family restaurant in Catalonia, where he now runs his own three-Michelin-starred restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca, with his two brothers Josep and Jordi (a brilliant sommelier and patissier respectively). The three siblings have also recently been made UNDP Goodwill Ambassadors, advocating for better nutrition and food security to promote sustainable development. Roca is passionate about culinary research, and is known for applying technical innovation to traditional cuisine, and for his love of local produce. In 2013, his team premiered El Somni, a multi-sensory production that explores the interaction between food, music and art. He has also pioneered a ‘gastro-botanical’ research project that catalogues rare wild species with the eventual hope that they can be sustainably reintroduced into food culture.

Speakers

Ferran Adrià

Spain

Using creativity and innovation to reconceive the way diners approach a meal, he has forever transformed the history of cooking. The name Ferran Adrià is synonymous with that of his iconic restaurant, El Bulli, located in Catalonia, where the chef has wielded deconstruction to blaze new culinary trails. While preserving the essence of classic dishes, this Catalan chef has revamped ingredients, textures, shape, temperatures and aesthetics. He has also invented numerous culinary techniques (spherification, edible foam, etc.) and equipment, revolutionizing the gastronomic experience. Thanks to his exceptional prestige, Adrià was the first chef ever to be invited to show his work at documenta (Kassel, Germany), one of the world’s most influential contemporary art shows. Adrià’s latest venture is the elBullifoundation: an expansive project exploring what lies behind the notions of creativity and knowledge.

The evolution of El Bulli

It was a revolution when gastronomy entered the world of arts

Ferran Adrià explains in #GastronomyShapers the evolution of El Bulli’s creative cuisine. He believes that when the pandemic ends, the avant-garde spirit will be more important than ever.

Speakers

Gastón Acurio

Peru

The driving force behind the revolution in Peruvian cuisine. Acurio has more than 40 restaurants around the world, including its emblematic Astrid & Gaston. He insists on taking the kitchen as a tool for social development. He is recognized for his philanthropic work, such as the cooking school he founded in the Lima suburb of Pachacútec, as well as for his passionate defence of cultural, social, and environmental causes. In 2011, for example, he launched a successful campaign against genetically modified crops in Peru that led to their being banned for a decade.

Speakers

Quique Dacosta

Spain

Talent, hard work and sensitivity are three qualities that have characterized the success of 3 Michelin Star Chef Quique Dacosta’s cuisine. The creations of his restaurant, Quique Dacosta, located in Denia, are born from local products, as a leitmotif of his work, and always with a view to the gastronomic wealth of other cultures, other countries, his cuisine and his products that enrich his proposal and tireless quest for learning.

Humility and leadership

"The mistake of my restaurant is that it has my name. We should write the names of everyone who is and has been there"

“When you are on a team, you also have to be a moral and empathic leader.” Chef Quique Dacosta talks about his role as a leader in his restaurant and the importance of working with a team of equals, united and cohesive.

Speakers

Pablo Rivero

Argentina

Don Julio, Pablo Rivero’s restaurant occupies a place within the prestigious ranking The World’s 50 Best. His proposal is the selection of the product that has marked Argentina, the richness of its livestock. A work that begins with the selection of the animal itself and that takes care of all the processes of manipulation until arriving at the technique.

Speakers

Eneko Atxa

Euskadi

Committed to sustainability, the Biscayan chef distinguishes himself by creating new dishes, investigating aromas, and recreating atmospheres for the diner. Azurmendi, chef Eneko Atxa’s three-star Michelin-starred restaurant in Larrabetzu, also shines in the ecological firmament with the National Award for the Hotel and Catering Business Committed to Sustainability from the Spanish Federation of Hotel and Catering Businesses and awarded as the most sustainable restaurant by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Its cuisine combines technical and aesthetic perfection with flavour, relying on local produce, the restaurant’s vegetable garden and Basque roots. All this without renouncing to a constant culinary evolution.

“Sustainability, building the most ecological restaurant possible and getting involved in the environment is not a trend for us, it is a consolidated fact”.

For a sustainable, healthy and just society

Eneko Atxa is the first participant of #GastronomyShapers, an initiative that represents a new learning platform for Basque Culinary Center’s students.

In his talk, the chef and owner of Azurmendi, shares the development of his career, how he faces work and his entrepreneurial experience, highlighting the importance of local gastronomy as a tool to achieve a better environment and a more sustainable, healthy and just society.

Speakers

Matt Orlando

Peru

Among the most committed chefs in the fight against food waste, Orlando stands out for an innovative and modern approach that uses all the weapons of haute cuisine. This American chef demonstrates that making the most of ingredients and resources has more to do with changing paradigms and assuming circular logics than with “using what has no value”. For Orlando, everything a product offers has potential and it is the chef’s job (not the ingredient’s) to prove it. In his restaurant Amass in Copenhagen, he promotes an atmosphere of healthy competition among his team to research new solutions that transform those parts of ingredients that others consider disposable, and thus take advantage of all their nutritional value. Amass uses almost exclusively organic inputs and has managed to reduce its waste by 75%. Former right-hand man of Rene Redzepi, Orlando makes his restaurant an educational resource, with workshops for urban children to learn how to plant, cook and consume vegetables.

Speakers

Rodolfo Guzmán

Chile

From the beginning, Guzman’s southern flag was always his land, hence the use of ingredients from the heart of Chile. The main characteristic of its cuisine is to take advantage of what each season of the year and each climate condition has to offer. “Our food is not based on technique, but on the taste of a territory”, are the words with which he defines his style. Chile is one of the largest endemic pantries in the world so tasting each dish at Bogaró restaurant is a sensory experience. It is to perceive a country and its history through every bite. The cuisine of Rodolfo Guzman, considered one of the best chefs in Latin America, stands out for its great inspiration in the Mapuche people. Emulating the culinary customs of the Mapuche ethnic group was his main goal. “I feel that we are like the continuation of the Mapuche people because we continue to do the same thing that they did. Their professionalism and their avant-garde philosophy, which highlights the indigenous, has captured the attention of gastronomy lovers. He has managed to set a unique precedent in Chile’s international culinary projection.

Speakers

Lars Williams

Copenhagen

In Copenhagen, the former director of research and development at the Nordic Food Lab embodies a novel understanding of innovation. With the eyes of a chef, he brings concepts associated with the world of cooking to the field of distillates with the company Empirical Spirits, with which he tries to “encapsulate flavors from around the world” with state-of-the-art distillation and fermentation techniques. Together with the activist and educator Chido Govera, founder of Future of Hope in Zimbabwe, he is beginning to promote innovative culinary schemes that favour excluded communities where ingredients with unexplored potential (from wild fruits to termites) are transformed into unique products capable of generating economic and identity value, captivating global markets.

“Being a chef today is more complicated than it has always been, but it also offers more opportunities. The culinary world has attracted considerable interest in the last decade, which has extended the scope of influence beyond our diners. There has always been a moral imperative to leave the world better than we found it, but it is increasingly a necessity rather than an option”.

Distilling with a chef's vision

Distillation and fermentation techniques like no other

Lars Williams speaks at #GastronomyShapers about the work they are doing at Empirical. Specifically related to the use of fermentation in the development of flavors and aromas. Their aim is to create new products, especially distillates.

Speakers

Pitu Roca

Spain

Sommelier, head of the room and co-owner with his brothers of the prestigious El Celler de Can Roca, Pitu Roca twice named best sommelier in the world celebrates that the world of wine is a way of bottling landscapes and ways of life. A faithful defender of the role of the dining room in restaurants, he claims that evolution no longer takes place in the kitchen, but in the dining room. He reveals that this is a dazzling world to discover and grow.  “Psychological and emotional factors come into play in dining room service.”

"Waiter's word"

"Having contact with a person is an opportunity to improve their life"

Josep Roca, head of the room and co-owner of the restaurant El Celler de Can Roca, analyzes the materialist culinary avant-garde and the post-materialist avant-garde in #GastronomyShapers.

Speakers

Ignacio Morgado

Spain

Ignacio Morgado, one of the great references in the field of neuropsychology and Professor of Psychobiology at the Neuroscience Institute of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. In his scientific studies he works to reveal aspects of the human mind and the sensory and perceptive processes that we do not have so well understood and that even come to surprise us.

“Emotion and reason are like two sides of the same coin. If a person has flaws in his emotional systems, he will not reason well, and if he has flaws in the rational system, his emotions will not be normal either”.

Speakers

Daniel Innerarity

Spain

Daniel Innerarity is a Spanish philosopher and essayist, awarded the National Literature Prize in the category of Essay in 2003. Professor of political and social philosophy, IKERBASQUE researcher at the University of the Basque Country and director of the Institute of Democratic Governance. He is a part-time professor at the European University Institute in Florence.  He is also a regular contributor to the media such as El País and El Correo/Diario Vasco, as well as the magazine Claves de Razón Práctica. He is also a member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts based in Salzburg since 2008 and of the Academy of Latinity. Due to his numerous awards and written works, Innerarity is considered one of the most prestigious and influential contemporary thinkers.

Speakers

Dimitris Leivadas

Spain

Dimitris has been a relevant member of the management team of several restaurants such as The Fat Duck in the UK and Nobu Matsuhisa in Mykonos and St Moritz. He is a great host, characterized by his dedication, desire to evolve, and improve. His discretion and his ability to anticipate what others need make him one of the best professionals in the world. Today, he is dedicated to advising the global sector of five-star hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants / 1-100 Best, at the head of Delta Lambda Hospitality (dl-h.com), a company he founded.

Speakers

Juan Moll

Spain

“The kitchen gives us sensations; the service gives us emotions”. How important it is to take care of the professional team of a restaurant. Transferring a great experience to the client begins with “generating authentic teams with good vibes”. Once this has been achieved, for Moll it is essential that the waiter is a person with a vocation and that he “loves people”.

Restaurant Consultant at Juan Moll Consulting.

Humility, continuous training, elegance, empathy, sensitivity, devotion, passion, wanting to make customers happy, a smile permanently drawn on the face even when things do not go as you would like.  Minimum requirements to be a waiter.

Speakers

Edgar Nuñez

Mexico

Chef Egdar Núñez’s culinary proposal in his restaurant Sud777 has been a watershed in Mexico City’s gastronomic offer. The chef’s prestigious technique, the innovative offer of his Mexican vegetable cuisine and the disruptive sensory experiences proposed have positioned the restaurant, for 4 consecutive years, on the list of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants. All the creations that have emerged from the imagination of this Mexican chef-businessman are based on the philosophy of exalting national ingredients. Edgar belongs to a generation of Mexican chefs who work to position modern Mexican gastronomy at a global level, seeking the roots of tradition and modernity, with a philosophy of knowledge, study of recipes and techniques, having as a principle the discipline and transmission.

Speakers

Antonio Bachour

France

USA

Its style denotes a special weakness for floral, fresh, and traditional ingredients from the world of avant-garde cuisine. His creations are usually lively and manage to enhance their volume through personalized geometric designs and all sorts of elements. What we know most about this chef’s work is due especially to his tireless training work around the world, the numerous books on author’s pastries he has published and the great success he reaps on social networks.

Speakers

Virgilio Martínez

Peru

Véliz’s menus reflect the gastronomic diversity of its country. Next to each of its dishes, it prints the ‘altitude of origin’ of the ingredients used, which, due to Peru’s geographical variation, can vary from the highest point of the Andes, to the depths of the Amazon rainforest, and to the sea level of Lima’s crystalline coast. Its flagship restaurant, Central, is considered one of the best restaurants in the world and was even the first Peruvian restaurant to be awarded a Michelin Star. In addition to managing its restaurants, Veliz also manages a parallel project, Mater Initiative, a research organization dedicated to registering all Peruvian indigenous ingredients to communicate their value to chefs and their guests around the world.

The flavors of Peru

"OUR MENUS CHANGE IN RELATION TO THE THINGS WE DISCOVER"

Chef Virgilio Martínez presents the creativity model of his «High-altitude cuisine» in #GastronomyShapers. It is an innovative model that is inspired by the ecosystems of Peru to reveal new flavors.

Speakers

Narda Lepes

Argentina

Narda Lepes is a renowned chef, author and TV host considered one of the references of the new era of argentine cuisine. Her career initially developed in television programs and consulting for gastronomic companies. Narda Comedor, her restaurant, has been included in the Latin America’s 50 Best. However, far from being exclusively dedicated to running his prestigious restaurant, Lepes has an admirable goal: to fight against the children’s food lobby by advocating healthy eating for all children.