Josean Alija (Spain)
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| Josean Alija is one of "The World's Most Influential, creative and important Chefs |
Outside
Restaurante Guggenheim—a temple of molecular gastronomy perched in the
Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain—modern works
from Richard Serra, Mark Rothko, and Andy Warhol line the halls. Inside,
the artist is Chef Josean Martínez Alija. Each table is a blank canvas,
draped with heavy, luxurious linens. There are no candles. No flatware
or bread plates or flowers. The art is in the food—which appears equally
spare, garnish–free and without sauce—and how diners connect with the
dishes.
The Luxury in Simplicity
Alija
boils his dishes down to their most essential ingredients, a process he
compares to writing Japanese haiku, where no syllable can be wasted.
And like haiku, the simplicity doesn’t lie in Alija’s method; it’s in
the clear, uncluttered translation of his ideas on a plate.
Like
comfort food chefs in the United States, Alija strives to connect
diners with familiar elements in food. But instead of leaving their
memories in the safety of Grandma’s kitchen, Alija coaxes diners
further. He presents unassuming ingredients and changes their textures,
flavors, and aromas.
For
example, the tomatoes in his Tomatoes Filled with Aromatic Herbs and
Caper Broth look like innocent, garden-variety produce, but the tomatoes
taste instead like bombs of rosemary, mint, chives, or lemongrass. To
achieve the effect, Alija treats the tomatoes in lime, inserts a
hypodermic needle into each, and injects them with herbal filling. He
then coats them with a skin–like green pepper or Morrón pepper “polish.”
“To
surprise with the familiar is difficult, as it is inherently a
challenge,” says Alija. [Simplicity] transports us to the essence: the
earth and its bounty.”
Where Haute Cuisine and Health Merge
Health,
it seems, is a welcome side effect of Alija’s stripped-down cuisine.
And while “good and good for you” sounds more like a slogan for Lean
Cuisine than the calling card of high gastronomy, Alija makes healthy
sexy. “The most interesting pursuit right now is to be able to cook with
absolute freedom in search of pleasure, without excluding good health
and well-being,” he says.
Without
sauce on his plates, there’s no extra butter or cream. He minimizes the
role of meat on his menu—for health, creative, and environmental
reasons—and instead, elevates the humble, but low-calorie, high-fiber
vegetable. Take his masterful, healthful play on surf n’ turf: instead
of lobster and steak, he pairs an earthy (otherworldly) grilled beet
with a mussel broth- and wine-soaked hunk of bread.
It’s
not easy to make a beet sexy, but Alija pulls it off, largely thanks to
the hours he and his team devote to developing and honing new
techniques.
Exacting Technique
Alija is a man who does things his way, because they naturally are the right way. Comprende?
The
most important tool in Alija’s kitchen is RD&I: research,
development, and innovation. He compares this work to a little boy “who
is always active, changing, and growing.” But the little boy who is
innovation is closely guarded by a chef who dispenses crystals of sea
salt onto dishes with tweezers and whose middle initial may as well
stand for “Meticulous.”
But
even a meticulous chef like Alija doesn’t work alone. “I am invested in
building a team whose work methods are so precise that they touch
perfection,” he says. And with a ratio of 23 perfection-chasing team
members to 35 fortunate diners at dinner service, his world inside the
Guggenheim museum is as close to artful perfection as fine-dining can
get.
A Prodigy Matured
Alija’s
methods result, in equal parts, from persistence, personality, and
pedigree. Alija trained since the tender age of 14 to take on his role
at Restaurante Guggenheim; he is a prodigy matured.
At
an age when most American teenagers struggle with pimples and high
school biology, Alija enrolled in Escuela de Hostelería Leioa, a
culinary school in his hometown of Leòn. Before long, he found himself
caught in the wave of the Spanish culinary revolution, working at El
Bulli under Ferran Adrià and at Lasarte with Martin Berasategui. In
2000, Alija won the 6th Annual Spanish Championship of Author Haute
Cuisine for Young Chefs at Lo Mejor de la Gastronomia—the award that
spurred his invitation to step into his current role at Restaurante
Guggenheim. He was only 22.
In
the 11 years since, Alija has paid homage to his mentors and
collaborators, like Chef Bixente Arrieta, by nurturing his own team of
talent. “The most important thing is to count on the people who stick
with you over the years, to create a team, which is like a family, and
to indoctrinate people with your philosophy and way of life, so they all
form part of our gastronomic culture. This collective awakening is
marvelous,” says Alija.
And
for all the team spirit, Alija compares his growth and trajectory to
Darwinian survival of the fittest. “My cooking has matured and adapted
itself to my personal evolution and surroundings,” says Alija. “As
Charles Darwin said, ‘it is not the strongest species that survive, nor
the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.’”
Change
is a common thread in Alija’s cuisine—whether it’s transforming a piece
of bread, adapting his style, or shaping his diners’ perspectives. “To
cook is to transform; change; provoke; and conjugate flavors, textures,
dreams, and appearances,” he says. “To cook is to give life to ideas and
share unique experiences by taking on new challenges.”
At the Cusp of Spanish Cuisine
A
major challenge for Alija (and others at the center of the molecular
gastronomy movement) is continuing to find new culinary boundaries to
break, and in turn wow guests. StarChefs tasted with Alija at
Restaurante Guggenheim in 2003. At the time, he cooked for us an egg
sous vide that blew us away (“us” includes Wylie Dufresne, who
accompanies us on the trip).
Eight
years later, home-cooks use sous vide technology to slow cook their own
eggs to silky perfection. Molecular gastronomy has gone (relatively)
mainstream, and El Bulli—the epicenter of it all—is closing, sort of.
Despite the changes and copycats and general watering down of the
movement, Alija still believes in the Spanish model and its aptitude for
producing beautiful, groundbreaking cuisine.
“I’ve
been both witness and protagonist to that which has occurred in the
national gastronomic panorama over the last two decades,” says Alija.
“The truth is an important change has come about: Spanish cuisine has
bet on innovation, without tossing aside local, seasonal products.”
Alija
is still betting on innovation and its ability to catapult Restaurante
Guggenheim into the top 50 restaurants in the world. “I confess that I
love to build on prestige, and to see my name in high places, tied to
glamour and quality. If you want to call all that success—I’d love it!”
says Alija. “In five years, I see myself completely absorbed in trying
to surprise my guests with new things.”
And we can’t wait to taste them.
by Caroline Hatchett
