Òliver Peña: "Both before and after earning the Michelin star, we're creating a menu of fourteen creations for €100."

BarcelonaI interview chef Òliver Peña (Rubí, 1981) before lunchtime at the restaurant he advises, Can Bo, located inside Barcelona's Grand Hotel Central (Via Laietana, 30), which has a very unusual history: the hotel had been the private residence of politician Francesc Cambó. It's a noucentista building, designed at the beginning of the 20th century, very innovative, where Cambó based his stays on the upper floors because he installed an elevator—the first in the city, I'm told at the Grand Hotel.

In the interview, chef Lorenzo Cavazzoni accompanies Òliver Peña, the day-to-day manager of Can Bo. L'Oliver combines his work as a consulting chef with his restaurant, Teatro Kitchen Bar (Avenida del Paral·lel, 164), where he has just earned a Michelin star. He earned the award in just two years. And since the end of last year, he has become one of the few restaurants in Catalonia to receive a Michelin star. His creative, flavorful dishes, designed to be eaten with two fingers, earned him the award.

Oliver recalls that his adventure in the profession began in his native Rubí, in restaurants and also at the General Hospital of Catalonia, while at home people told him they didn't like the job he had. legendary restaurant Comerç 24, by chef Carles Abellan, and then the mother accepted her son's job. In 2007, she and Abellan experienced the recognition of the Michelin Guide with the first star.

How did you start working at El Bulli?

— I sent a resume, which could be submitted through the restaurant's website. They responded telling me they had positions available in Seville, where they ran Hacienda Benazuza. And off I went by car. It was 2004, and I started in the dessert section with Rafa Morales and Arnau Muñío's team. In Seville in 2004, we reproduced the dishes that had been made at El Bulli in the previous two years. We reproduced them and updated them. I was there until 2005, when I moved to Tragabuches in Seville, and from there, a year later, to Comerç 24, owned by Carles Abellan. In 2007, after a year of working as head pastry chef, we received a Michelin star.

And at Comerç 24 you had a long run.

— Six years. I was the head chef, but no creatives. We worked a lot, but we also had a great time. We served eighty people, and we were always packed, midday and night. It was very intense. I remember all of this as a time of great learning.

When you talk about intensity, I think of kitchens with tension and shouting.

— There's no shouting in mine. Nor in Teatro, or Can Bo, or in any of the recent ones I've been in: Enigma, 41° Experience... It was a different story. Everyone knew what they had to do, even though there were always nerves. What I've learned over all these years in the business is that you have to give the people you work with tools to act the way you want, and that way you minimize mistakes.

You mentioned Enigma and the now-defunct 41º Experience, led by chef Albert Adrià. Did you work there?

— Yes, and I was also at the opening of Heart in Ibiza. I remember that once a month Ferran Adrià would sell us food as a customer, and afterward he'd tell us what he thought. Ferran is very good at analyzing what he's eaten, the service, the restaurant...

How did you settle in at the Kitchen Bar Theater while working on Enigma?

— The pandemic helped me stop and reflect on the craft. At Enigma, we were so focused on creating, on inventing dishes, that I couldn't see anything else. I wasn't enjoying the day-to-day. So, when Albert Adrià reopened Enigma in June 2022, I started as an advisor at Teatro Kitchen Bar, and at first, I prepared a consistent menu, similar to the previous stage. When I decided to transition from advisor to chef—when I decided to stay at Teatro—I changed the dishes, preparing one menu of fourteen dishes and another of nineteen, all designed to be eaten with your hands. And this is where I'm still at.

When the inspectors started visiting you Michelin Guide?

— The first one came two weeks after opening. That's when I was working as an advisor. That was in 2022. In 2023, none came, and in early 2024, separated by a few months, two came. I know them all because after so many years in the business, we eventually recognized them. After the two visits, and with the letter we received asking me to attend the gala last November in Murcia, the team and I thought we might have some hope. It was a possibility, but we also knew it might not be, and an invitation to the gala isn't a guarantee that you'll win anything. The fact is, we did win our first Michelin star.

Has the price changed since you won it?

— Both before and after earning the Michelin star, we're creating a menu of fourteen creations for exactly €100. The nineteen-piece menu is €125.

In Teatro and Can Bo you have designed two very different menus.

— At Teatro, the two menus to choose from have preparations designed to be eaten with two fingers. At Can Bo, they are tapas and dishes, with a wine list of nearly 200 wines, 70% of which are Catalan, and we have more than 20 available for drinking by the glass. We've also started making our own cured meats, which can be eaten at any time at the bar, along with cheeses. The restaurant is open all day. It has lunch and dinner hours, and afterwards, at any time, you can enjoy meals at the bar.

At Can Bo, with chef Lorenzo Cavazzoni, I have found that the menu is a mix of dishes from Catalan and other Italian cuisine.

— We are not an Italian restaurant, but we do have some dishes Italians, because Lorenzo knows his hometown cuisine well, and we think it's a way to differentiate ourselves from other restaurants. We believe the entrance to Can Bo, with its own door, separate from the hotel's, overcomes the natural barrier of entering hotels to eat.

Tell me about the pasta dish on the Can Bo menu, which I notice is the star. And another dish you'd like to highlight.

— Lorenzo makes the pasta by hand, and he prepares the ragu himself using a recipe from northern Genoa, where he hails. And we'd like to highlight the Russian salad, which we've put a lot of love into. We prepare it daily, it doesn't touch the refrigerator, the potatoes are hand-cut, not machine-cut, we use Gordal olives, olive oil from the anchovies, tuna belly... It's a classic tapa that we've made a great effort to make very good. We serve it with small breadsticks. It's truly a different kind of salad than the usual ones.

I've also seen potato omelette.

— And we make one with sobrasada, which gives the potatoes a spicy touch and makes everything creamy. We put the sobrasada on top of the potato omelet, which we make when requested.

Finally, what professional goals are you working towards?

— My dream is for Can Bo to reach all audiences with the quality offering we've prepared. We want to reach everyone. We're open every day of the week, and we're waiting for the construction work on Via Laietana to be completed so the neighborhood can resume normal mobility.