Another gala night for Catalan gastronomy, which shone yesterday in the gardens of the Pedralbes palace with the presentation of the National awards. A meeting that has become the great meeting of the restaurant sector and which last night brought together almost 600 people, including chefs, entrepreneurs in the sector, professionals in the restaurant and wine industry, and also the more well-known faces of civil society, who participated in a dinner cooked by Joel Castanyé, from La Boscana, in Bellvís (Pla d’Urgell).
The protagonist of the party was the chef Rafa Peña i Cerro, co-owner with Mireia Navarro of the Barcelona restaurant Gresca, which both opened in 2006. After a decade, the couple expanded the place and the business with their successful Gresca Bar Peña launched Bar Torpedo five years ago, with delicious sandwiches, and has been advising the Santo Mauro hotel in Madrid for three years. The cook, who when studying at the UB started working to pay his expenses, fell in love with the stove alongside Jo Baixas, with whom he worked first at Balancí and later at Follia (Sant Joan Despí).
If Rafa Peña is one of the most beloved Catalan chefs, both the revelation prize and the chef de sala prize went to two professionals who have won great respect from customers and colleagues: the first is Nil Dulcet, disciple from the trio of chefs from Disfrutar i Compartir; currently its partner and director and chef of Compartir Barcelona. Dulcet worked at El Bulli during the last stage of the restaurant that just yesterday opened its doors as a museum, and subsequently became part of the team at the first Compartir, in Cadaqués, and later joined the Barcelona enjoy The new revelation chef opened Compartir Barcelona last year with those who had been his bosses until then.
The prize for the best head chef went to Pablo Sacerdote, from Barcelona’s Cocina Hermanos Torres, the new Barcelona three-star in this year’s guide, from twins Javier and Sergio Torres. Sacerdote, born in La Plata (Argentina), had already been a key piece in the Sala de l’Abac, where he was until he obtained the highest recognition from Michelin and later from the late Marea Alta, under the orders of Enrique Valentí .
As every year, the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition announced its special award, which this year went to the well-known chef José Andrés, who was collected by his friend Joan Roca on his behalf. From the chef settled in the United States, his role in spreading the cuisine of tapas to the world was highlighted, as a great chef, at the head of the Minibar by José Andrés, haute cuisine, which he manages together with many others establishments and, of course, his leadership at the head of the World Central Kitchen Foundation, from which he provides meals to people suffering the ravages of various natural disasters and wars.
As the president of the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition, Carles Vilarrubí, explained to La Vanguardia, the annual gala is an opportunity to show the transversality of an area, gastronomy, “which fulfills the function of uniting people in some moments of complicated social context”. Vilarrubí pointed out that “there are other disciplines, such as music, which also unite, but during a concert we are silent while around a table we converse and share with people who do not always think the same as us”.
There was some silence when the president of the Academy gave a speech full of messages in which he praised the good moment of Catalan gastronomy, but also asked “to put an end to a fifth column that aims to misinform and distort our reality”. Vilarrubí insisted that “we need to put an end to the heavy and dark music of this fifth column, which tries to convince that Barcelona and Catalonia have entered into decline in relation to other cities and communities”.
The president of the Academy encouraged us to be realistic without forgetting what needs to be improved and rectified, but he recalled some successes that place Catalan gastronomy in an excellent place: “For example, according to the Michelin guide, Catalonia has 53 restaurants with stars and a total of 69 stars, figures that do not stand up to any comparison”. He highlighted the leadership role of El Bulli, El Celler de Can Roca or Sant Pau, all of them outside the Catalan capital, and recalled that last year Barcelona led the average occupancy of restaurants in Spain, with an interannual growth of 9.67%, “a figure that triples the growth of the Spanish average”. He highlighted the role of Mercabarna as Europe’s first wholesale market in the sale of fruit, vegetables and fish, and pointed out that this year the city will host ten important gastronomic events. These are some of the arguments he listed before affirming that “we have resounding reasons for self-esteem”.
