If someone had predicted years ago to Elisabet Farrero that her future was not in Barcelona, that she would soon return to the town, in Barruera, to open a restaurant, the chef of El Ventador would have thought them crazy. She left the family home very early. Her skill in the specialty of equestrian jumping made her enjoy a scholarship in Lleida when she was in the fourth year of ESO. And at the age of 18, she excitedly moved to Barcelona to start Physics, which she left in the second year to switch to Humanities, at Pompeu Fabra. At that stage he hesitated a lot, he had intense creative impulses, but he didn't know how to channel them. The kitchen was not, not by a long shot, among his plans, although he did caress the idea of getting some more or less stimulating work in the cultural sector of the capital. Neither one nor the other. Fate offered him to express his art in a different setting, at the stove and surrounded by the mountains of the Vall de Boí.
Elisabet Farrero, 38 years old, is the protagonist of the first chapter of the seven-chapter series Life in the Pyrenees, which starts today and will offer every day until Sunday the testimony of people, with very different profiles, who live in this geographical area.
"I had finished my degree and had done small jobs at Casa América, at Arts Santa Mònica, visited La Pedrera..., but I didn't sense any interesting opportunities. I studied a post-graduate course in Documentary Production with the prospect of staying in Barcelona, I liked the city very much, I had no intention of returning to Barruera", she confesses one afternoon in July on the terrace of her cozy restaurant accompanied by her young assistant , Sergi Fernández, after the lunch shift.
The answer to the concerns came when you least expected it. Elisabeth rarely went to Barruera, but in December 2012 her mother asked her for help to open a wine bar specializing in local products, cheeses and cold meats. “Since he had planned to go up for the Christmas holidays, I said yes and gave him a hand. I don't know what happened to me, my idea was to stay there for a few days and return to Barcelona, but I entered the place and fell in love, something woke up in me, a kind of intuition, for the first time I went feeling safe, I got hooked and stayed there", she explains with a slight smile. Soon her mother left the project, they had very different visions of how to approach it, and Elisabeth, at 27 years old, put herself at the head of the business to set the path that has led to the current El Ventador, in Barruera, just over 1,000 meters away. The Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition recognized his work with the 2022 Revelation cook award.
It has not been easy for him to make his way in a destination where traditional gastronomic establishments and grilled meats are very popular. His tapas bar became a creative cuisine restaurant with a nod to the mountains and with the added bonus of giving prominence to local products: organic meat – his father is a rancher –; wild trout, when he finds them; game, mushrooms and the vegetables offered by the garden.
Elisabeth undertook this stage with her partner, Pierre Cosnard, a French cabinetmaker and adventurer whom she had met during a trip to Canada. "We met again in Paris, he liked the idea and came with me to Barruera. I felt an inner commotion, an energy that exploded, I finally saw the light in the distance. More than a business, I wanted to consolidate something that made sense in this territory, that would revalue it, and I could express this in the kitchen, in the decoration, in the music”. A grand piano presides over the dining room. Much of the furniture has been made by Pierre with oak wood from Elisabet's father's meadows. Pierre is a man with many facets, including that of a gold prospector in remote countries. Both are parents of a girl and have contributed to revitalizing the population of Barruera, which has 240 registered residents, a hundred more than 30 years ago. The entire municipality of Vall de Boí has more than a thousand compared to 800 at the end of the 20th century.
“A lot of people my age have come back in the last decade and had children here, there are about 70 children in the school. Before, those who left and studied a career no longer came back," he says. Tourism is one of the engines in an enclave that fights for deseasonalization. Livestock farming depends on subsidies, and not a few families combine it with other activities.
The dishes he has created speak of his dreams, of his love for the Vall de Boí, of his travels and also of his passion for Asian cuisine; not surprisingly, he spent two months learning at Dos Palillos. Her crispy candied duck rolls are a tribute to the Raval restaurant, and the lamb with yoghurt, mint and quinoa transports her to the Middle East and to her student days, when she ate a copy of Xauarmes. His venison carpaccio smoked in teia wood and with truffle oil from La Ribagorça smells of fallas, the tradition of many towns in the Pyrenees to bring burning logs down from the mountain.
"I work 14 hours a day, I don't have a fixed team, since the high season only lasts four months, it's very short", he comments, while regretting that this summer is being "lax". But living surrounded by nature brings him tranquility and inspiration. "It's the best place in the world to raise my daughter, everything is close by, I feel very rooted there and my life is very close to what makes me happy. I like to hear the stories of the past, of my grandmothers, both very good cooks and fighters", she reflects.
The beauty of the place makes him fall in love. The peaks, the landscape, the history, the rich Romanesque legacy... He only occasionally leaves the base camp to continue training in Barcelona and other cities.
The main challenge of Vall de Boí, like that of so many other tourist municipalities in the Pyrenees, is to make affordable housing available to young people. "This is the number one problem", explains this chef, who lives in a rented flat.
