Benjamín Urdiaín, a Navarrese chef who led the legendary Zalacaín restaurant in Madrid for 30 years, the first three-star restaurant in Spain, has died this Tuesday in the capital at the age of 84. This was reported by the Association of Cooks and Pastry Chefs of the Community of Madrid (ACYRE), of which Urdiaín was honorary president, lamenting his loss on social networks and without explaining the causes of his death.
Born in 1939 in the Navarre town of Ziordia, Urdiaín was the first chef to win three Michelin stars for a Spanish restaurant. He did so after working for 10 years in France (he trained between Bayonne and Biarritz, as well as in the Parisian restaurant Plaza Athénée), when he took over the reins of Zalacaín from Madrid in 1973 together with the sommelier Custodio Zamarra and the head waiter José Jiménez Blas. This team achieved the first star in 1975, the second in 1981, and in 1987 the highest recognition from the Red Guide, the three Michelin stars, two years before Arzak also achieved it.
In Zalacaín they fed leaders and celebrities from all over the world: from the singer Maria Callas to actors and actresses such as Marlon Brando, Jean Paul Belmondo, Jeanne Moreau, Anthony Quinn or Gregory Peck passed through their tables. Also to great rockers like the Rolling Stones, the artist Salvador Dalí or the writer Mario Vargas Llosa. Regular customers were some members of the royal family and even Farah Diba, the wife of the Shah of Persia, to whom Urdiaín dedicated the name of his gelée consommé.
Zalacaín lost his third star when his circumstances and those of the country were different (1996). Another series of events led to the loss of the second (2001) and, thirteen years later, the first (2015). It was in 2002 when Urdiaín decided to hang up his apron after 30 years in charge of the restaurant’s kitchen, coinciding with the handover from Jesús Oyarbide to Luis García Cereceda, from Grupo La Finca. Since then, the mythical Zalacaín entered a decline that in 2020 led it almost to its final closure.
Currently, it has managed to revive after being acquired by the Urrechu Group. The man responsible for breathing new life into it has been Álvarez de Baena, well known for the success of his evolved Basque cuisine establishments and the charisma of his executive chef, the television host Íñigo Pérez, alias Urrechu.
Before retiring, Urdiaín’s career was recognized in 1981 with the National Gastronomy Award and in 2002 with the Grand Prize for Memory and Gratitude awarded by the French International Academy of Gastronomy (2002). Recently (2022), he had also been awarded the Best Chef in Madrid award, which he received from Dabiz Muñoz.
