Nandu Jubany: “When I think about the restaurant's thirty years, I tell myself that luck must be pursued and that it should always find you working.”

CalldetenesNandu Jubany restaurant has just celebrated its thirtieth anniversary, and it did so in style, with a grand party at the restaurant itself in Calldetenes. Three hundred people gathered, including chefs, winemakers, sommeliers, producers, pastry chefs, and friends of the brand, a benchmark in Catalonia, Andorra, and soon to be in Madrid. "We are preparing a project in collaboration with head waiter Abel Valverde, from the restaurant Desde 1911, part of the Pescaderías Coruñesas group," revealed the chef from Osona. "When I think about the restaurant's thirty years, I tell myself that you have to chase your luck and that it should always find you working."

The Jubany-Orte family had invited guests to the party at one o'clock in the afternoon. Upon arrival, the chef helped them park. As always, hospitality and kindness go hand in hand from the very first step taken at Nandu Jubany restaurant. In fact, in the same open area where cars could park, the family had set up a large crane, on which the chef had promised throughout the meal that he would perform.

But above all, the chef and his partner, Anna Orte, who is also the head of the dining room, were concerned that everyone would eat. Even during the video they were projecting in the garden, which reviewed their career, the chef became nervous and asked them to speed up the images because it was time to eat. And, with speed and efficiency, the waiters appeared, bringing out all the dishes, a total of twenty. And what dishes! The great influences of Nandu Jubany's cuisine. What were they?

To start, a spherified olive, over which the waiters drizzled a stream of extra virgin olive oil. Then came artichoke soup with cod fritters and Iberian ham peach; followed by a gilda (a type of pintxo) of Es Còdol tuna belly, just as they serve it in the Formentera restaurant, and with a few more starters, we moved on to the main courses. The iconic flatbread with caramelized fig was, of course, present. Some were moved, as it had been served at the weddings of the children of some of the guests, and everyone had very fond memories of it. After the flatbread came the fish and seafood bouillabaisse; the dry rice with espadrilles; the bone marrow with beef tartare; the tuna belly; and the veal snout with langoustines and mussels.

Five desserts and a cake

And dessert. Five desserts and a cake, with the number 30 in chocolate, shaped like a windmill, prepared by the world's best chocolatier, Lluc Crusellas, with which all the chefs took a photo. Oriol Castro (from the world's best restaurant, Disfrutar in Barcelona); Carme Ruscalleda; Martina and Carlota Puigvert; Ferran Adrià; Carlos Gaig; Paco Pérez; Ramon Freixa; Aitor Arregi, ElkanoHideki Matsuhisa of Koy Shunka; sommelier Josep Roca of Bodega de Can Roca; producers Paco de Rosa Torelló of Torelló; Sara Pérez and René Barbier; Agustí Roca of AT Roca; and others wished the family many more years.

Meanwhile, chef Nandu Jubany's mother, Elena Herms, said that her son was very hardworking. "Did you know that he's now building a larger company in Vic to produce more cannelloni?" she asked, and as soon as she explained it, Nandu confirmed it. Yes, among his future projects, besides Madrid, for which he asked his children to get involved live on air, are the new facilities for cooking the cannelloni.

Finally, the performanceIt was 5:30 in the afternoon when the entire Jubany family donned black and white frog jumpsuits and climbed onto ropes that a crane had raised skyward. Thirty-three people perched there, twisting and turning up and down, imitating whatever each of them chose to imagine, like Vic sausages or dried almonds. The guests watched from the restaurant garden and exclaimed how brave they were to climb up there, how dizzying! After a while, chef Nandu Jubany came down and assured everyone that he hadn't felt any vertigo, that everything had gone very well. "I even felt better up there than this morning, when I did the tests to make sure everything would go smoothly this afternoon," he confessed. And as he said this, he put on a t-shirt with red lettering declaring that the Nandu Jubany restaurant is now thirty years old. And with good vibes, here's to many more!