I interview chef Àlex López (Banyoles, 1992) at his restaurant Arraval (c. Marquès de Barberà, 22), which opened last November. It's 7 p.m., he's just finished dinner, and he's getting ready to start the day's service, which is always early evening, except on Saturdays, when they also serve lunch. The restaurant is bright and located on a side street off the Rambla del Raval. A few meters further on is the legendary Bar Cañete. Arraval is one of the best options for Catalan cuisine in the Raval neighborhood, along with Suculent and Ca l'Isidre. The average bill is 50 euros, and it seats between forty and fifty people, in addition to a private room for twenty-five. Àlex, a good conversationalist, I met last summer at the Alkostat del Mar restaurant, inside the Finca Victoria hotel, located on Sa Riera beach, Begur.

We are a pacifist country, but Catalan cuisine must defend itself. This was proclaimed last year by chef Jordi Vilà when he published the manual with defensive movements., Not an attack, but a counter-offensive against the invasive dishes that dazzle us and make us forget that we have a cuisine documented for over 700 years. This year, the chef of Alkimia, together with the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition, has published a paper calendar, the kind you hang in the kitchen, with the twelve movements, three more than Vilà had planned at the beginning of last year. The calendar is sponsored by Royal Bliss; it's a gift for restaurateurs, and it was presented at the Windsor restaurant, run by Joan Junyent.

Joan Manubens (Barcelona, ​​1987) studied hospitality and completed internships in restaurants, such as in the Hostal de la Plaza, in CabrilsHe also spent a few months with his father, Joan Manubens Figueras, at Pasillo de Pep. It was then that he realized the two were incompatible. "I only learned who my father was and what Pasillo de Pep was like when I was with him," explains Joan, who decided to dedicate himself to teaching after finishing his hospitality studies. He was head of studies and a vocational automotive teacher at the Monlau training center. when his father diedAnd he took over the restaurant. This January marks eight years since Joan started running Pasillo de Pep. The restaurant, which has no sign at the entrance and is accessed through a passageway, like the entrance to an apartment building, has turned forty-seven and is more active than ever. Its fish and seafood stews They have a loyal clientele, including the management of Mobile World Congressand have become a Barcelona legend. Joan adds that he misses teaching, which he enjoyed, and just this year he was asked to give some talks at a hospitality school, which he was thrilled about. It's another vocation he has alongside his work as a restaurateur. One of the beloved and award-winning waiters works at Pep's Corridor. Modesto Baena, who has been working for thirty-six years.

"We want to introduce Catalan cuisine to our guests," Jaume Vilardell, the director of the five-star Finca Victoria, tells me. He has extensive experience managing hotels around the world and is happy to be back home in Catalonia. The hotel just opened this June, and they still have a few details to finish, such as the name sign itself, and a new entrance. These are just minor details, because the hotel's rooms are already full, guests are swimming in the blue pool, and in the restaurant, chefs Jordi Vilà and Àlex López, as head chef, have brought the greatest successes of the Barcelona restaurant Alkostat, facing the sea in Begur.

I 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.

Vindication can be achieved from many perspectives, including humor. That's why chef Jordi Vilà, along with his creative team, created the Self-defense manual for Catalan cuisine. It consists of a poster that, like an auca and inspired by martial arts, shows how to combat the arguments of the misinformed who believe that pasta has more history in Italy than in Catalonia or that pickles like the one in ceviche They have come to us from the other side of the Atlantic when they already appear in the Sent Soví's Book 400 years ago.