Nati Camps Franquesa: "We do not make a zero-waste kitchen, because every product we buy is to make a dish"

Santa Coloma de QueraltI interview the sisters Rosita (Santa Coloma de Queralt, 1943) and Nati Camps Franquesa (Santa Coloma, 1947) at the Hostal Colomí in Santa Coloma de Queralt after a meal in which they have shown me that together with Pep (Santa Coloma, 1974), Rosita's son, they are unbeatable. The restaurant room, full, Nati, in front of the grill, Pep, carrying dishes up and down, and Rosita doing the numbers, who adds at a speed that the MareNostrum supercomputer would already want. "No calculator adds as quickly as my mother," Pep tells me, singing the dishes he has served at the tables for her to do the accounts. When I started writing about gastronomy, twenty-five years ago, the Camps sisters were a benchmark for well-made Catalan cuisine, for local produce, for the seasons. Today it is still like that, and they deserve to be recognized. Why is it so hard in this country to give deserved recognition?

Did the parents open the restaurant?

— The parents, yes, but they had it leased to others. The house belonged to the grandfather. When the parents died, they left it to us. While they had it leased, during the Franco dictatorship, it was called Posada Comercia. Upstairs from the restaurant there were rooms. We no longer have them; we have put another dining room there, which occupies the same space as the lounge downstairs. The capacity is for sixty people.

I've seen that you have two shifts for lunch. You are so quick and effective that you can do it, and well.

— Yes, we do two shifts at noon, and we don't open in the afternoons. We have a menu from Monday to Friday. At 9 in the morning, all three of us are here. All three of us get into the kitchen, but I do very little. The ones who do more are Rosita and Pep.

At what point did you decide to start working at the restaurant, the two sisters?

— We have always been here. We studied right here. Even though our parents had it rented out, we were here. We both studied business, which would be today's business administration. My nephew, Pep, trained at the hotel school on Muntaner street in Barcelona, and also studied sommelier at CETT. He soon understood that he wanted to work with both of us, even though he initially started studying law.

What is the key to success, in your opinion? At noon, in the two shifts, fill the room.

— People know that at Hostal Colomí they will find seasonal produce. We work with local producers. We even serve ear-shaped pastries for dessert, which they also prepare for us. And we love to follow the seasons: mushroom season, truffle season, pea season, artichoke season. Look, today you have eaten the last artichokes, which we cook in two different ways, and the zucchini flower season, for which the first ones have just arrived today. We make the zucchini flowers battered, stuffed with cod brandade. Have you seen how beautiful they are? We also handle meat, as we have beef, cow, and Angus.

It must be difficult to get the product you want.

— For beef, we sometimes have to wait six months; for the rest, we have contact with all the surrounding farmers. We use about twenty-five kilos of potatoes daily, which we serve fried, on a platter.

While I was eating the dishes, the stuffed zucchini flowers, the offal, I thought that you make a very authentic cuisine.

— We believe we make honest food. It is honest because we don't deceive. If you have a product, you cook it as well as you know how to make it.

I saw your sister Rosita in front of the embers throughout the meal. She wasn't wearing an apron. She is dressed elegantly in front of the embers.

— She really likes the grill. From 9 am to 12 pm, she is in the kitchen with Pep and me. She takes care of preparing the escalivades; I, the stews. Rosita is very meticulous with the grill, which we make with oak and holm oak wood. And the dining room doesn't smell of smoke, because we have a good extractor. You haven't smelled it, the smell of smoke, when you've entered, have you?

No. I don't notice it on the clothes either. What dish is most popular? The offal perhaps?

— All. We are lucky that we sell what we want, because Pep takes orders at the tables, sings the dishes and tells them: "Today we have this." And he says it because they are the products we have, which are good. Because we buy products to use them. For example, we don't make croquettes from leftovers. When we make croquettes, we make them. And the same with the cod fritters. Our fritters are well stuffed, full, because we use cod to make them, and not any leftovers. That's why everything is a fritter. I'll put it another way: we don't do scrap cooking, because every product we buy is to make a dish.

But the offal would certainly be a cuisine of making use of.

— Yes, you are right. With the little ones we do salvage cooking, we use all parts of the animal.

Personalities have passed through Hostal Colomí.

— President Josep Tarradellas came to lunch after having left his archive at the monastery of Poblet. We had photos of that moment, and we lost them. Pasqual Maragall also came. I would say that almost all the presidents of the Generalitat have come. There is some politician who has never come, like Artur Mas. Oh! And artists also come to us, like Andrea Motis. How pretty she is.

Have you ever thought about not coming to work at the restaurant?

— One moment, I'm totaling this bill. At this table there is a dish that they tell me they didn't like, and so I won't charge them for it because we always side with the customer. We like constructive criticism.

I was wondering if you ever imagine not coming to work at Cal Colomí.

— Yes, of course. We are not eternal. The other day some gentlemen came and told us: "You are the girls from Cal Colomí". And I thought that those girls we were no longer exist. Neither the girls nor the children. We are not Walt Disney, we are not unalterable over time. My sister turned 79 on Sant Jordi; I am 83. We have our years, but we feel good, we like our work, and working is the way to feel good. And every day we see people, and we talk to them.

Of the dishes you cook, which ones do you like the most?

— The sole, which comes to us from the port of Tarragona. The meat, the ribs, the hamburgers, which we make ourselves. The spoon dishes.

Pep will continue the business.

— I suppose. This is the idea, that Cal Colomí continues for many years, but he has to say it. We have to ask him. I just give thanks for all these years, because I have met many people. You know that sometimes they have compared us to the Reixach sisters from Hispània, but we have never met them. And we are not both cooks, they are. I dedicate myself to choosing the meat, especially. Look, here comes Pep. Ask him if he wants to continue.

Pep, Cal Colomí will continue with you.

— [Pep] I've been working here for twenty-eight years and everyone knows that Cal Colomí belongs to the Camps sisters. For me, they have been a mirror. And my mother and aunt tell me that without me, they wouldn't have done the work they've done all these years.

If one of the three is not at work, does Cal Colomí remain open?

— No. We close it. If one of the three is missing, we close. I always take a big trip once a year, and then we close. This year I went to Egypt and we closed it. Have I told you that we have a Monday to Friday menu for 25 euros? With coffee, it's 27. From July 15th to September 15th, we don't offer this menu. Then, everything is à la carte.

To conclude, I can only wish long life to Hostal Colomí.

— If we were young, we would do even more things. We are very happy with the life we have had. Sometimes I have wondered if the life I have had has been worth it. And then I think yes. It has been worth it. If not, we would not have met the former Barça player Gerard Piqué.