Montse Guillén, the woman who brought Catalan cuisine to New York, dies.

BarcelonaChef and entrepreneur Montse Guillén died at the age of 79 this weekend in Barcelona after years of battling an illness. Guillén was the soul of the legendary L'Internacional restaurant in New York, where figures such as Andy Warhol and Basquiat discovered Catalan cuisine from 1984 to 1986. She would later open other projects around the world.

Guillén began cooking at Can Borrell, in Cerdanya, in the town of Meranges, where her parents bought a farmhouse where they made food for hikers. A mother of two at a very young age, Guillén started working at La Venta, on Tibidabo in Barcelona, ​​where she managed to make a name for herself in a world full of men. "Fernando (Amat) and Paco (Bosch) gave me freedom. I opened the kitchen so the diners could see it. I don't know if in 1978 there were many restaurants in Barcelona with open kitchens. And I went to France to look for cooks. The nouvelle cuisine The Bocuse project was already underway, and I thought visiting Michel Guérard in Eugénie-les-Bains was a good idea. But it didn't work out. "We're close to San Sebastián, aren't we?" I said. Thanks to my friend Llorenç Torrado, Arzak welcomed us and left us two fabulous chefs! We revolutionized La Venta; it wasn't just salad and grilled ribs anymore. We were thrilled!" explained to ARA a few months ago talking with journalist Toni Vall.

Guillén built a network of collaborators and friends with whom he launched projects, such as the iconic MG restaurant in Barcelona on Calle Marià Cubí, with interior design by Carles Riart and assistance from Xavier Mariscal. This restaurant provided training, for example, to the Fermí Puig, also missing a few months agoIn 1981, she began her American adventure with the Wheat & Steak restaurant in Kansas City. But what truly marked a turning point was the famous El Internacional in New York. Together with her inseparable husband, the artist Antoni Miralda, they created the trend-setting spot of the moment in the city. "It was about bringing Catalan cuisine to New York but through tapas, which they had no idea what they were there. And what is bread with tomato if not a tapa? El Miralda fell in love with an old 1950s restaurant called Teddy's on West Broadway and transformed it into his own work of art."Is it the gallery or the restaurant?"people would ask as they came in. We opened at twelve and closed at three in the morning. I'll just tell you that 800 people came every day. A waiter could easily make $1,000 a day in tips," a woman who would become friends with the artist Keith Haring explained to ARA, to the point that she would be instrumental in his painting a mural in Barcelona's Raval district shortly before his death. Famous names such as Madonna and David Basquiat, who was in love with one of the waitresses, appeared on the boards of L'Internacional. In Warhol's case, what he fell in love with was butifarra with beans.

In recent years, Guillén lived between Miami and Barcelona, ​​working on the FoodCultura project, a foundation that researches and blends cuisine with art and science, launched in 2000 together with Miralda. This project brought them into conflict with the Catalan authorities. The couple has an impressive space in Poblenou, but it's not large enough for the entire collection. There was an idea to create a museum in La Casa de la Prensa, but ultimately, as this newspaper reported, a good part of the FoodCultura archive, a collection of 8,000 culinary objects, ended up in Santander in the hands of a private collection.