Former professional chef and gourmet Philippe Regol stars in the new episode of the Stay to eat podcast. Regol, whose reviews on his blog Observación Gastronómica arouse the interest of many chefs and foodies, talks about his own limits when writing about restaurants, and also about the limits of those more provocative culinary proposals, such as those of Andoni Luis Aduriz in Mugaritz (Errenteria ), to which he recognizes that “sometimes I submit and other times I rebel.” Or about the fine line that separates the objective defects of a dish and what depends on personal tastes.
In the most creative cuisine, he defends a point of contact between the cook and the diner, where each one has to walk part of the way: “You are not the painter who hangs his work and you pass by. I'm going to eat it. Gastronomy will have artistic aspects but it also has a lot of food, nutrition, the pleasure of eating and you have to make concessions.” Regol recalls one of the experiences at Italian chef Carlo Cracco's restaurant, in which he was served an oyster with raw beef kidney. “It was disgusting, obviously, and I told him: you have to make a way towards the diner.”
During the talk, Regol explains that he started working in a Barcelona restaurant at the time when he had moved to Barcelona from his native France, where teaching French did not allow him to earn enough to live. “Sometimes there were six eggs in my refrigerator and a kilo of potatoes in the pantry. One day I had to sell a bus pass to be able to eat. But it's not about being sad, they are very common things when you change countries. I went into this restaurant almost to eat. I remember asking, but do you eat well? And when they answered “restaurant food”, my eyes lit up. At first it was hard, because they don't ask you what your university degree is. You come in and they tell you: “Let's wash the pots. “To clean squid.”
He recognizes that he has phobias and philias and analyzes them, in a conversation in which he also speaks about emotions, which he assures that he can convey both the simplest and most avant-garde cuisine. “This is the beautiful thing about gastronomy, that it goes beyond the food or nutritional dimension and even enjoyment. Because we are in a moment of pornography of enjoyment, of showing caviar, but sometimes it is the small emotions, like when a sardine reminds you of a stew your mother made that moves you deeply.”
Among other topics, he remembers how El Bulli marked him and explains the reasons that made it the focus of the greatest gastronomic revolution. And he speaks out about those immersive culinary experiences, such as those at the Danish restaurant Alchemist, that do not attract him: "I believe that gastronomy, cooking, has so many resources to excite, to surprise in this small space that is a support called dish, there is so much power there, why resort to the show. On the contrary, the show distracts you from concentrating on the dish. Do you think we are going to be able to be so sensitive to a taste of a bite if we have loud music, aggressive images that surround you? I think not. The brain has a limited capacity at the level of stimuli. And taste or smell are very weak senses compared to sight. And who is going to win? The show is going to win. And can that be a model of gastronomy?"
Regarding his daily life in restaurants, we asked him for some opinions: about eating alone or with others, he assures that he likes the former so much - “a dish sends you many messages and when you are alone is when you can stop to contemplate it, smell it, although today the dishes They don't smell as much anymore, but you can analyze it and see what it is transmitting to you -, like going with friends who understand gastronomy and with whom you contrast opinions. Regarding tables with or without a tablecloth, he states that it is not a red line for him, "although a tablecloth is appreciated." "In any case, he adds, "we know the cost of good table linen and if in a humble place it means sacrificing the quality of the product, I prefer the product." He states that he likes modest comfort and about his predilections regarding tableware, He believes that “there is nothing more beautiful than a white porcelain plate” and he proclaims himself a staunch defender of the spoon, which should always be present on the tables.
