Jordi Vilà: "Albert Adrià's Enigma is the restaurant most mistreated by the guides."

BarcelonaI interviewed chef Jordi Vilà after lunch on a Wednesday. I ate at the bar, where the team prepared some of the dishes from the tasting menu at Alkimia (with a Michelin star) and Al Kostat, the restaurant located at the back of the room, separated from Alkimia by a kind of wooden crossbow, always half-open, which some have dubbed whale ribs. The imagination is free. I would have liked to watch the chefs working for longer, but I immediately ordered Jordi Vilà's dish of green beans with potatoes and sausage from a pot that became Proust's madeleine. Why is it so hard to find a good vegetable dish on restaurant menus? I was thinking about this while I ate, and I didn't even hear what Vilà was saying, asking me if I liked the dish. As we started the interview, with the restaurant empty, Uri Costak, the chef's friend and comrade in battle, came through the door, carrying All the merchandising they have created together to defend Catalan cuisine with humor: T-shirts, mugs, posters and, soon, a recipe book.

Is Catalan cuisine so endangered that it needs to defend itself with martial arts?

— I'm one of those who likes to see, or even drink, the state of Catalan cuisine with a glass half full, but we all know we're in a time of change, that technology has an impact on all areas of knowledge, and cuisine is suffering. And look, geographically we're in a privileged location; we live in a territory where extraordinary products exist, and we have an ancient heritage.

What then is the threat to Catalan cuisine?

— One of the threats is climate change, because it causes plants to change their rhythms. And what I just told you, technology, because we prefer looking at our phones than cooking. Nothing is more absurd than consuming food through our phones. In fact, I'd say that phones are causing us to lose ties with family, friends, and reading. However, I'm forced to be optimistic, and that's why I made this poster, in which each of the characters appearing performing judo moves are members of our team. In the face of a world that's passing and one that's coming, Catalan cuisine tells us where we are, where we live, and where we're going. That's why I created this merchandising, because I want to sound a warning, a statement of protest, because we must defend ourselves in a time when we no longer even know our family recipes.

Why have they been lost?

— Because they haven't been passed down from mothers to daughters, because, luckily, women have entered the workforce, but then no one has compiled them. And on top of all this, we also have the fact that we are engaged in a bitter struggle against time. We only have to look at the face creams we have at home; creams we buy and apply to combat wrinkles, to resist the passage of time. We fight against time, but at the same time, we don't want to dedicate it to cooking. It's a shame, because if we try, cooking gives us back many things. And I'm referring to Catalan cuisine, but it's useful for everyone to reflect on it. Now, I'm not the one who will defend Asturian bean curd, because everyone should defend their own. Look, in Barcelona, the restaurant where I've eaten the most is Dos Palillos, by chef Albert Raurich, because I always eat Catalan cuisine at home.

We continue with the optimistic outlook. I want to talk to you about young chefs I've interviewed recently, such as Joan Vallès, from the Gigante restaurant, either Francesca Baixas, Joshua McCarty, and Gianmarco Greci, from Franca restaurant, which just opened and is serving Catalan cuisine. At Gigante, I had rabbit with snails.

— I also make rabbit with minced meat and liver. I have it on the menu at Al Kostat and I've also put it on as a takeaway at Vivanda (c. Major de Sarrià, 134). I'd say that chefs, as a collective, have matured and we have a generation of young people who choose to be chefs out of passion, while there's another group who are giving up because they're more comfortable in another format. The culinary revolution has already passed, which means two worlds coexist: on the one hand, Disfrutar, the best restaurant in the world, which we have in Barcelona, ​​and'Enigma, which has conceptually ruled out spherification and provokes with minimalism. Let me tell you that Enigma, by Albert Adrià, is the restaurant most mistreated by the guides, because it should be at the top of all the rankings, but it isn't. I'll continue. So we have restaurants like Disfrutar and Enigma that maintain the line of creativity and avant-garde and that demonstrate that ours is mature. And, on the other hand, we have restaurants like the ones you mentioned, and many others, based on improving and evolving the recipe book of Catalan cuisine. I myself place myself in this second line.

I would say your dishes are avant-garde, and I say this thinking about the seafood or game dishes.

— I'm leading the way from the rear. I'm providing answers where there haven't been any before. You speak of the escudella, to which I have given two answers, that of hunting and that of sea, but I also work with romescos and fricandoso. The more I delve into a Catalan dish, the more experience I have.

Catalan cuisine is roasted, boiled, and sautéed.

— And everything with onions, because we come from onions; we've always used garlic sparingly, otherwise it can ruin a dish. And our kitchen was white, because in addition to onions, almonds also had a lot of weight. Later, tomatoes and peppers arrived, and then our kitchen turned brown.

We were talking about the two cuisines that coexist in Catalonia, and I want to ask you about France. They haven't experienced the gastronomic revolution that occurred in our country, and they've kept their recipes intact.

— Before Ferran Adrià, who is a genius and I don't accept anyone minimizing him, in Catalonia, French cuisine was copied. Look for magazines from those earlier years at El Bulli and you'll see that's true. However, France invented the concept of gastronomy, established the craft and the recipes; they have the best cheeses and wines, and their restaurants are always full. But the world has changed, and the culinary elite is in Catalonia. On the contrary, in Catalonia, the craft isn't as fixed as it is in France. Here, there's a need for dining room and kitchen staff, because it's a demanding job that requires working nights.

You always close on the weekend.

— I'm in favor of reducing hours, but we'll have to end up opening every day of the week because expenses have increased; if you add up staffing, ingredient costs, gas and electricity consumption, everything has skyrocketed. So, in the future, I'll close Alkimia for good and stay at Al Kostat, which will be a restaurant model that will outlive me. Alkimia is a personal expression of mine; it's emotional, and the older I get, the less I want. Al Kostat, on the other hand, is visceral; it roots me to my motherland, and therefore, I can't see the end.