Black is Paco Méndez's favorite color: it reigns over a good part of his left arm and on the logo and walls of his restaurant. And also, of course, in his profile picture, with his initials inside a circle, which is the shape of another of his passions: vinyl records.Where does your passion for haute cuisine come from?
— I fell in love with El Bulli while looking at its books when I was still a student in Mexico.
What do you remember about the first time at El Bulli?
— The feeling that I was in a world in which, honestly, I had never thought I could be. Five years later I went there as a stagier.
I already had a career in Mexico.
— I used to appear on a television show, I was invited to festivals… If I had stayed there, right now I might have five restaurants or be managing ten hotels. I left absolutely everything to come and set up a restaurant with Albert [Adrià].
Do you regret it?
— No. I am aware that no one has given me anything for free. I was one of the first Mexicans to receive a Michelin star. And I know that the only way to earn the respect of people like the Adriàs is through hard work. I like challenges. Also representing my country.
With everything that being 9,000 km away implies.
— When my grandmother died, I was here. Then a part of maturity comes over you and you tell yourself that what you came here to do must be worth it.
Wow.
— I had already seen it as a teenager. In the summers, my parents would send me to work at an uncle's restaurant in the United States. I dedicated myself to cleaning beef tripe for the menudo. There, I lived with many undocumented immigrants.
What were they telling him?
— That they had left a little daughter behind, that they hadn't seen their family for four years, that they didn't know their children... Migration is a family investment. Are you the most capable? Well go, cross the river, risk your life, and when you are settled, rescue us. This is the true story of Mexico and the United States.
His grandmother, a daughter of migration, was his teacher.
— She was born in the countryside, the daughter of a German who fled the war. She was a great cook. She made the tortillas from scratch, ground the corn… And she was very much about resting: she would get up at four, finish the ribs by nine, and let them rest until two.
Would he have gotten along with the Adriàs?
— I think so. My grandparents were not at all old-fashioned. If you wanted to get a tattoo, you got one; if you wanted to wear an earring, you wore one. What they asked for was very simple: to be honest, humble, and simple.
What do you remember doing together?
— Cleaning the little stones from the beans while we talked. And traveling: my grandparents dedicated themselves to getting to know small towns in Mexico and would take me with them. Thanks to them I have a great gustatory memory, which is formed as a child.
How do your children eat?
— The two little ones eat everything; the oldest one doesn't want to try anything. And I tell her: "And what will you do when your friends invite you to eat somewhere?"
Hopefully, this phase ends up passing. Was it while cooking with your grandmother that you knew you wanted to be a chef?
— No, I would never have imagined it. I thought I would be an engineer, but I was a bad student: I was kicked out of two high schools because I spent the day with my skateboard.
Is he going to the Macba to skate now?
— I have been there, but it has been a long time since I last skated. Now I prefer surfskate, which is safer: you get older and you have to stop doing silly things.
Let's go back to the mother.
— He said he would pay for my last school and that if I failed, I shouldn't come back home. It was for tourism and hospitality.
And now it has a Michelin star. What else does it aspire to?
— This is not a sprint, it is a marathon. If you are given the number one in the world and three stars in five years, what do you do next? For me, it is more motivating that the customer comes and enjoys themselves.
Which prejudice remains in force?
— That you cannot pay much for Mexican food. We still do not understand why the people of Barcelona and Catalonia do not come to the restaurant as much.
The COME menu costs 185 euros.
— Fifteen of us work for eighteen diners. The premises are not given to me for free, nor is the fish or the caviar.
Why add caviar to guacamole?
— Textures. When you analyze a blini with caviar, you see that the cream helps you feel the pearls more. We made a Mexican blini, with the caviar like the salt in guacamole.
In Mexico round trip he writes that within it two Mexicos coexist.
— They must coexist, because I am here and my cuisine is based on what I learned in Europe. COME is a Mexican restaurant, but it is the acronym for CO-cina ME-xicana and CO-cina ME-diterránea. I have learned to live my country in a different way than the people who are there live it.
And how do you live the legacy of El Bulli?
— I believe that El Bulli remains open: there are many of us who keep its soul alive. But I understood why it closed for one reason: if the pressure eats you up and you are no longer happy –and you can afford it economically–, you have to let things go.
There are those who say that Adrià had the duty to keep it open.
— El Bulli is like Barça: a brand. Ferran was the coach and the players were all of us. How long has it taken Barça to get back to what it had with Guardiola? I think Ferran didn't want to see how the monster he had built was falling to pieces.
And was it better to die in beauty?
— Ferran was also a visionary in the logic that should be followed in life: I'm leaving, and that's it.