It is an initiative that the Roca brothers have been carrying out for many years but, as Joan explained in Madrid Fusión, they had never counted.
Every year they have a contest, “a kind of MasterChef”, in which Jordi, Joan and Pitu Roca act as judges. All young interns participate in it: the prize is to have dinner El Celler, a restaurant in which they work, but which the vast majority cannot enjoy as diners.
“It is a form of Leverage internal talent to use the creativity of the boys and girls who come from all over the world”, explains Roca.
And this year the winning dish has been so popular that the chef has decided include it in an upcoming menu and present it at Madrid Fusion.
Tom’s Land
The winner of the contest has been Tom Bosch van Rosenthala young Dutchman who is working as stager at El Cellar. During the contest, participants can use any of the food available in the restaurant and even bring products from outside. But Bosch decided to make a puff dish with the products from his batch, the vegetable one.
“He made the dish with only products recovered from your batch, things that we threw away”, explains Roca. “He even mounted it on a plate that we were going to throw away, because it was broken. She spun it and kept serving.”
The brothers were impressed with the exercise, as the stager not only did he manage to present an interesting dish with the ingredients he had on hand, but also build a storyor around it, recreating the crop farm that feeds El Celler, more brownand how the seasons pass through it.
At the base of the dish are elements of flavor that the game had, pear and Jerusalem artichoke. On top, beans and buckwheat recovered from old varieties. Above vegetable leaves that we do not use and that simulate autumn. Smoked pecan nuts on top, with toasted powdered milk. To top it off, a pear granita, which symbolizes the autumn rain, and freeze dried spinachas a spring grass.
“The story seemed so fantastic to me that I said, we have to tell it”Rock points out. “But not so much because of the originality of the dish but because of those intangibles linked to this idea: use and life cycle of the land. It’s so simple and so powerful at the same time.”
Direct to the Palate | Joan Roca recalls his beginnings as a chef with his mother
Direct to the Palate | Joan Roca’s research with fermentation and pickles that makes what we thought was inedible edible