A young talent unites ancient Rome, Catalonia and Morocco

Moha Quach was a twelve-year-old boy when he arrived in Catalonia, specifically to Miami Platja, a coastal residential area in Mont-roig del Camp. His parents, originally from northern Morocco, came, like thousands of their fellow countrymen, to find a better future for themselves and their children. Moha had no knowledge of our culture or our language, but he adapted quickly: "At the school where I arrived, there was a reception class with people from South America, Romania, Lithuania, Morocco... we had Catalan as our common language to communicate."

El Terrat d'en Quach was born in Tarragona in 2018 with the references of his mother's and grandmother's cooking. A period of apprenticeship at the Cambrils Hospitality School and in several restaurants in the area made him discover his passion for cooking. It was then that he began to have curiosity about everything: he read books from the nouvelle cuisine, interviews with Ferran Adrià, and he searched for videos of Juan Mari Arzak, Pedro Subijana, and all the people who have made history in contemporary cuisine. Now, El Terrat is his project and his passion.

Aware of Moha's talent, we decided to try the long menu called Mare Nostrum (€115 without wine). We started with a selection of ten appetizers that foreshadowed a magnificent meal. We continued with marinated sea bass with white asparagus, garum espuma, and caviar. echo; a Marcona almond cream from Riudoms, mollusks from the Delta, olive gel, and seaweed air; squid ravioli in its ink with low-temperature Iberian pork cheek; morels with truffle, scallops, and hollandaise sauce; hake cheeks with veal tripe suquet and Riudoms teardrop peas; lemon fish and pod air; and romesco sauce with San Carlos de la Rápita prawns. With this, we've already touched the sky, but there's more. The final flourish begins with creamy red shrimp rice from Tarragona and ends with a dish of blue lobster, squash blossom with toasted butter, garum, and caviar.

We gladly accept the wine they offer us. It's Pleret from the Buil & Giné winery, a Garnacha and Cariñena from two hundred-year-old vines planted in Gratallops and Bellmunt del Priorat.In litigation' is an adverbial phrase that means 'slowly, without haste'A perfect definition for a dessert that is about to arrive.

A fake pistachio apple and apple textures and a creamy Amlú, almond ice cream and toffee pear are the perfect culmination to a lunch that shows all the potential of Moha Quach, recently awarded the prestigious Revelation 2025 prize by the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition.

Moha came from Ben Taeib, a village in the province of Nador, in northern Morocco, to stay and succeed. He's doing so with firm steps, asserting a very personal cuisine, rooted in his origins, in the Tarragona that has given him the opportunity to grow professionally, and in the city's Roman past. "The Mediterranean is the link between ancient Rome, Catalonia, and Morocco," he tells us, proud of his past and the journey he's taken to get where he is now. The breakthrough award went to a chef rooted in our country with a stimulating and well-executed proposal. We don't know what will happen in the near future, but we sense that he will soon receive international recognition in the form of a star. The rooftop of Moha Quach has become a compelling reason to visit Tarragona.