What does the cuisine of Josean Alija, head of the Bilbao-based Nerua, have in common with that of the Andalusian chef Dani Carnero (Kaleja, Málaga) or with that of the Sevillian Rafa Zafra (Amar, Barcelona)? Well the truth is that little or rather nothing. Even so, these three chefs demonstrated last night that they can coexist and merge into one at a 6-hand dinner organized by the Macarfi Guide at the Palace hotel.
It is not the first time that it has occurred to them to bring together such disparate chefs in a unique and unrepeatable dinner: we already saw it months ago when, for example, Sacha Hormaechea (from Sacha, Madrid) and Rafa Zafra joined forces in that same kitchen. But if on that occasion the diner was able to instantly guess which chef had prepared each dish that was paraded around the room, yesterday the same was not even close.
Dinner started with a lazy gazpacho with onion, almond and caviar that was confusing. Will it be from Josean Alija, due to the sensitive presentation, or from Dani Carnero? The diners wondered, and at one point they had to turn to the waiters to understand who was who in the kitchen.
Then some dishes arrived at the table that did not lend themselves to any confusion: the delicious red prawn suquet from Roses unmistakably bore the seal of one of the chefs who best knows how to handle the product of that area (Rafa Zafra); or the hake kokotxa, with zurrukutuna and parsley, which by its very name was a declaration of intentions from which area of ??Spain it came from.
On a night without as much caviar as is usually served at the Amar restaurant, the most acclaimed dish of the night was the pularda cake wrapped in cabbage with truffle. It was cooked by Dani Carnero, “the chef who cooks the best in Spain,” said Rafa Zafra when the performance ended.
