The new life of Rais Esteve and Arnau Paris: television cooks and fathers of twins

Cornellà de LlobregatWe arrive in Cornellà just when Arnau París (Barcelona, 1988) and Rais Esteve (Sant Boi de Llobregat, 1989) have left their twins, Artur and Robert, at the nursery school. It has been a year of many changes for this couple, who met at MasterChef, in which Paris won the 2021 edition and Rais Esteve worked in gastronomic consulting. Since they knew they were receiving a visit from the ARA, they waited for us with the table set for breakfast. Paris insists that we taste the sobrassada that they make.

While Paris is well known in Catalan households because it appears in the Kitchens, making her recipes simple in a jiffy, Esteve, who had a long career as a chef, until now was not known to the general public. She was, however, in the field of gastronomy. She has worked with Paco Pérez, was part of the team that achieved the three stars at Dani Garcia, and has been the head of R&D at Disfrutar. In addition, she was one of the people who used to warn Jordi Cruz through the earpiece that a contestant's sauce was breaking or that they were making a fatal decision. The commitments in Paris, which this year will see her take over from Marc Ribas at Card game, has left space for someone to join in presenting more simple preparations to the viewer. Esteve, who was already collaborating on the program by writing many of these recipes, has had to leave his position behind the camera and step in front of it. So the conversation begins by asking Paris who Rais Esteve is, for whom his mother chose his given name by searching in a book of names.

"Rais is the best in the world," she says with confidence. "She is the most professional person. Who knows more about cooking than anyone I've ever met. I swear to you. She is a person I admire a lot for the work she has done and for the talent she has, for how hard-working she is, for how she explains things. I have always said that she is a person the world cannot afford to lose," asserts París while Esteve blushes. "And on a personal level, she is a very affectionate person." At this point, Esteve doubts whether this is of interest to the public. But París doesn't care and continues. "She loves very, very strongly, very clearly, very intensely," she says, and adds: "It doesn't matter to me, but she is too demanding of herself. She is a very good mother, she is very hard-working, she is tireless."

When they met, at the MasterChef casting, nothing predicted that this would end with twins. “We weren't a couple until two years later,” they say. París explains that he had to work very hard. “I was an expert in mining,” he acknowledges. Esteve remembers that she had a very different image of him at that time. “I won't say I hated him because I didn't hate him, and because I was fond of him because he was Catalan. And because in the end he always knew how to land on his feet in any situation. But he was a histrionic guy. Who flirted with everyone.” “And here we are,” says Esteve, amused. “Long after, I discovered that behind that huge character there was a person whom I want in my life always.”

And since this season they also share a program, Cuines. “I want to claim that in the Cuines program there are also some people who seem not to exist but they do. The culinary advisors. At MasterChef without us they knew nothing of what was happening. I also had to prepare the challenges. If they wanted a super difficult chocolate challenge that lasted 90 minutes, I had to be able to do it in 45 minutes,” explains Esteve. She, experienced in high-level kitchens, finds that the current challenge is more intimidating. “When I arrived at Disfrutar, I had spent 8 years in a high-gastronomy environment. A lot of demand, a lot of perseverance, and almost an obsession for your work. And I like that. It is like my personality, deep down. And, on the other hand, putting myself in front of a camera is the opposite, knowing that everything can happen a bit live and maybe you don't have all the resources to fix it. It won't be a worldwide disaster, but I can think 'oops, I don't like how this thing I'm cutting is turning out.' This flexibility of 'it is what it is, smile and it's fine, because at home it will pass,' is what has been the hardest for me”.

For París, appearing on TV has a learning process. A time to let go until you gain enough confidence. But for Esteve, comparing herself with her partner is a handicap. “My comparison is Arnau, and it's impossible to reach the level of this beast. You see him and you say, how handsome, how good... And I look at myself and almost cry.” París responds that no way: “In four years you will be the same and you will say, damn, how well I do it. It's like a dish when you make it many times. You do it very well!”, he says with conviction.

Approachable, friendly and ironic

The challenges in this house never end. The next season of Joc de cartes has already been filmed in its entirety: they finished in July. In chapter five, there will be a change of presenters. “I hope that people have as good a time watching it as I do making it,” he states. There won't be many more changes; it is one of the successful programs on TV3. “We start from a format that is already made, which is what it is, and in the end what I do is give it my own tone when conducting the format. And what am I like? I'm a down-to-earth, friendly, ironic guy, I play a lot with facial expressions. Everything shows on my face, and that will be shown on screen”. Esteve highlights his colleague's ease in connecting with people as one of his superpowers. “I have managed to create atmospheres of trust and good vibes with the contestants, and that also allows them to let go a lot when it comes to telling you things, to playing,” he asserts.

In recent seasons, there have been controversial contestants and tense situations. Regarding this, París is clear. “I start from the premise that those of us sitting here are responsible adults and have judgment. Therefore, what you say is what will end up on screen. And how you have your kitchen, what you show, is what we will later show the audience on the program. There is no distortion. Therefore, if your kitchen is a mess, you already knew we were coming. It actually makes me laugh. We have walked into some kitchens and I have thought: ‘Damn, but you knew we were coming today!’”. And this carries over to the way of being. “Just like when it comes to playing: if you are a jerk in your real life and you come to the program being a jerk, well, it will come out that you are a jerk. You're of age, you're on your own. You already know what TV is like. It's not new to you”.

What was new was the twins. Esteve became pregnant and at the ultrasound, surprise, there were two. They had to change homes. An attic apartment without an elevator cannot be reconciled with two babies. Motherhood has not prevented Esteve from taking on the new challenge on television. “It has been the luck of my life, this 'Cuines' thing, because it is very easy to reconcile. We record more than one program in a day. Not only have I been lucky enough to have the opportunity, but also because of the moment it came, because all the work I used to do as a culinary advisor...” Here París interrupts her. To him, the facet of advisor should not be conjugated in the past tense. But Rais Esteve insists: “That is to say, now I am a mother. It is like that, because life is like that. You cannot say 'I am still...'. No, right now I am a mother and I appear on TV. Period. All the work I used to do before has been shelved”.

When she was pregnant, one day she made an appeal. She could not find any chef's jacket for pregnant women. She gave birth in March, and until February she was teaching classes. The problem is that the sector did not foresee her case. And even less so with a belly full of twins. She had to buy a very large jacket with a zipper. “In the end, I went around in a sack of potatoes and that was it. I wrote to many people. And it is a drama. I believe that the fact that a jacket for pregnant women does not exist immediately means the denial of a reality and a large part of society”.

"We are not the Civil Guard"

Rais Esteve and Arnau París have been preparing meals for several summers in Boada (La Noguera), at Molí de la Vansa. The estate is where Arnau París's paternal family has lived and where they produce oil. It is also a rural tourism house and where they started a gastronomic project six years ago. They served tasting menus there in the summers, except for this last one, which they did not do because they had just become parents. París acknowledges that they are thinking about how to transform this project: "Until now we used our vacations to cook up there, but now we have other priorities.” Esteve adds that “it is cool that there are always common ideas and separate projects”. “Exactly, we don't work 24 hours together”, says París. And Esteve concludes: “we are not the Civil Guard”. And suddenly the commercial salesman appears who París was before he was famous: “We cannot be the Civil Guard because we will invoice half; if each one goes on their own, we invoice double. I am a result-oriented person”. “We are the opposite. I love work, I live for work, I am always a romantic”, finishes Esteve. The yin and the yang getting along well. Or to put it in culinary terms, a pairing by contrast that works.