Chef School Review is a guide to chef schools offering education, diplomas, and degree programs (including Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Programs) in cooking and culinary arts.

by Judi Sandall
judi.sandall@chefschoolreview.com
Chef School Review Columnist

On October 12, 2006, Spain’s top chefs gathered at Guastavino’s in NYC for a culinary gala—Spain’s 10: Cocina de Vanguardia—to celebrate la cocina contemporánea.

Contemporary Spanish cuisine has been undergoing a major culinary revolution over the last 20 years. From San Sebastiàn to Marbella to Madrid, Spanish chefs have been working to bring a culinary freshness and vitality, well beyond the familiar paella and chorizo, to Spanish cuisine.

Culinary Kudos to the Chefs

A celebration of contemporary Spanish cuisine, this benefit for the Beard Foundation came with a hefty price tag, topping out at $50,000 per table of eight, to rub elbows with Ferran Adrià, of the Costa Brava’s famous restaurant, El Bulli. Adrià has been acclaimed as one of the world’s most innovative chefs. The other nine Spanish culinary notables were:

• Juan Mari Arzak - San Sebastiàn chef who “reinvigorated and modernized” Basque cuisine
• Alberto Chicote - Madrid chef who combines Mediterranean seafood with Japanese techniques
• Martin Berasategui - San Sebastiàn chef whose Basque cuisine has a “masterful harmony of ingredients and preparation that are combined in sublime, unexpected ways”
• Paco Roncero - Madrid chef, selected to cook at the Spanish Crown Prince’s wedding with Adrià and Arzak
• Quique Dacosta - noted chef in Spain’s Costa Blanca region
• Daniel Garcia - Marbella chef who wants to “reinterpret the culinary tradition of his Andalusian homeland”
• Enrique Martínez - Navarre chef who creates modern Spanish dishes based on available local produce
• Joan Roca - Catalonian chef who “focuses on the meeting point between aroma and flavor”
• Paco Torreblanca - one of the foremost confectionary artisans in the world with studios in Elda and Madrid

Characteristics for Culinary Acclaim

Two primary characteristics that define all of these chefs are the insatiable quest for unique culinary knowledge about aroma, taste, texture, ingredients, and techniques and the courage to apply that knowledge in innovative ways. For them, experimenting and thinking outside the culinary box have become the norm, which has paid off in the resurgent interest in Spanish cuisine. Get a culinary degree and liberate your own culinary revolutionary. Who knows where the path of culinary enlightenment might lead?

Source

James Beard Foundation

About the Author

Judi Sandall is a technical writer and a regular Chef School Review columnist. She is a graduate of the State University of New York, with a BA in English Literature.

Posted on October 27, 2006 at 4:16 PM

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