Hi everyone, welcome to potluck food talks.
Today we're on another episode of our Mugaritz Chronicles with my man Phil W and Kevin the
Koji Whisperer.
How you guys doing?
Doing great, doing great.
Living my best life as the Whisperer of Koji.
So how did you end up in Mugaritz Kevin?
How did it happen?
So I first heard about Mugaritz, what must have been 2010, 2009.
I was working in a restaurant at the time, but the restaurant was closed.
It was open seven days, six days a week, but you would only work five of those six days.
So I had two days that I wasn't at the restaurant and I took a job, a part time job at a bookstore
in Toronto that only sold cookbooks.
And basically I got paid to sell cookbooks to the people who came into the store.
And besides that, just read as many cookbooks as I wanted and you would get a discount on
cookbooks as well as staff members.
So that was around the same year that the Fieden Mugaritz book came out.
And I remember reading it and seeing basically food, food that I had never seen before.
I grew up on the French Laundry Cookbook.
That was like one of the first most influential cookbooks I ever, I ever read.
Classic.
And if you look at photos of the Mugaritz Cookbook and photos of the French Laundry
Cookbook, you can see there's definitely a big difference.
And it was very exciting to me to see that kind of food in a cookbook and to be aware
of this other restaurants in Spain, right?
Because we all, we all knew about El Bulli at the time.
That was El Bulli's heyday was around that time, you know, was it five straights, number
ones in the world and things like that.
This is before, before Noma took over as the number one restaurant in the world.
And Andoni came to Toronto to do a book signing and a book tour to promote his book.
And whenever these authors, these chefs would come to Toronto to do these tours, they would
do it through the bookstore I worked at.
That was, we were like a very small independent bookstore, but it was all cookbooks.
So it made sense for chefs who were promoting their books to come through that store and
promotes all their, all their new things.
So as a side note, that's how I met people like Anthony Bourdain and Nigella Lawson and
Daniel Belluge is, that's how I met René for the first time.
And now I work with the guy.
But anyways, Andoni came through and set up a store, did a signing, did a bit of a talk
with people in the store through a translator who was Susanna, his assistant at the time.
And I just asked him, that was the end of the event.
And I told him that I had applied for an internship a year before and had never heard back.
And then I said, you know, someday I'd like to be an intern for you and in San Sebastian
and that my Spanish was terrible slash non-existent.
And to his credit, he gave me his full attention and said, this is the email to the person
who handles internships, send her an email and, and then we'll get you in.
Okay, so there was no, there was no wait time or anything like that.
That evening I sent an email to, to, I think it was the Isa at Mugaritz who was taking
care of all the internships.
And then I heard back that they had an opening and later that this was, this must've been
in like July or August later that, that year in September, I believe I flew to San Sebastian.
I was 21 years old.
It's interesting what you say about the books because I remember if I'm not wrong, Phil,
that was also the reason you went to Mugaritz through the book, like what first sparked
you or your thing of going there.
And from my side, talking about the, the first time I saw the French only cookbook was actually
at the Mugaritz intern house.
Someone had the book and I remember I was working at the garden at that moment and I,
there was a picture of a chef like with scissors cutting herbs in a culinary garden.
And I was like, wow, this is not like some crazy Basque, well actually it is, but like
some crazy Basque chefs doing this isolated from, from anything else in the world.
This is something that there are other restaurants doing the same, right?
Like having a garden and doing this type of tweezer cooking and, and that was completely
new for me.
I mean, I was like 18 years old.
It was like something really impressive.
Yeah.
It's funny that you mentioned that seeing the book at the, at Mugaritz for the first
time because Phil, I don't remember, I don't know if you remember this, but I had the La
Straske cookbook ordered from the bookstore I used to work at shipped to San Sebastian
to the intern house.
And I think that might've been the first time you got to see that book as well.
Cause I remember we were both looking at it in that, that weird basement dining room area
in the, in the house we were living in.
Yeah.
That's crazy because that's your favorite cookbook, right?
And Phil.
Yeah.
I was just about to say, I, um, I, yeah, that cookbook like influenced me massively, massively.
And it's the only restaurant that I regret not having gotten into.
I mean, I set myself, uh, very like very early on, there were like three restaurants that
I kind of set myself the goal of working at or a starging at.
And there was Mugurids, Ryogin and, uh, Faviken.
And um, and I, I managed to get into all of these.
I was very fortunate that that happened like really, really quickly in my career.
Um, and, uh, but La Strasse is really sort of like one place that I really regret not
having went.
I tried, I tried to get in, but it's, I never heard anything back.
Um, but that cookbook is such an inspiration still.
I mean, like, I mean, talking about the French law of the cookbook and stuff like that, I
still like once in a while I take it into my hand and I kind of read through it and
you know, the, the processes and the broths and the sauces and that, but, um, this for
me, there's no cookbook like the La Strasse cookbook.
It really kind of hits the, the pitch of kind of like what I feel passionate about in cooking.
It has this like real, it's very unique, very, very unique.
Yeah.
I spent fucking days reading that book, like in the emails, the kitchen, like in the break
that we sometimes had in between services.
If there was like a break, I would go into the emails, the kitchen, read the, and read
the books that were there in the library.
And more often than not, I would read the last trans cookbook and look at that little
site manual of like step by step of like how to make the mushroom tart or how to roast
a pigeon or the, the missile eggplant that he did, right.
Or he steamed it and pressed it and then bruleed it and it was like custard.
Yeah.
The NASA dengaku version.
Yeah.
And we, we do that in the test kitchen until they kicked us out because we were supposed
to be on siesta.
I've said it many times that maybe the most technical chef I've seen working, uh, was
a French Japanese guy called Shinichi Sato, who was a stagiaire at Mugariz in my time
when I was there.
And he was like a last trans veteran.
So the first time I knew who Pascal Barbeau was, was because he walked into the kitchen
and everyone was like, Oh, he's there.
Everybody was impressed.
And suddenly the Japanese was like, Hey man, what's up?
You know, like just saying hi to me.
He was doing the, he did like the fish section for a few years in last trans.
Also the first time that I saw the guys from Disrutar, they were, they were still working
at El Bulli back then.
This was 2005, you know.
So they walk into the kitchen and I was like, who are these guys?
And they were like, you don't know.
Yeah, nice.
So and how did you guys meet, meet each other?
I also want to know about that.
Like you lived in the same apartment or how was it exactly?
So I would been an intern at Mugariz for the end of the 2011 season.
I think, yeah, it was 2011.
And then when we came back, I was, I was asked to come back for the Ima stay period where
they basically develop the new menu for the months of what, February and March to be debuted
in April when the restaurant reopened because the restaurant basically closes at the Christmas
holiday and doesn't reopen until the early, early spring.
So they, they had me come back and help them out with that.
And I think Phil, did you come for part of that as well?
Or did you come when we started service days and things like that?
I came, I was one of the first to arrive for the new season.
I came like two or three weeks before the service day started.
So I had sort of like one of the first picks in the house for, you know, from, I mean,
apart from who was left there from the Ima stay period.
But yeah, I came in, I didn't do any Ima stay or anything.
Like I came straight in the beginning for the, for the service days.
And you showed up with like no luggage.
I remember this.
You were just like, it was like you showed up with a knapsack or something.
Yeah.
Cause I didn't have anything, man.
Didn't own anything.
He had to burn all his things because he had like one, one week to leave Berlin.
I left, like, I honestly, I don't know how much of that, like you kind of like picked
up or, but I mean, I came, I arrived in Mugaritz like pretty bashed up.
I had like cuts and bruises in my face.
Yeah.
I remember you told me you were stopped at every airplane control in every airport.
You please step aside.
We want to check you a little bit more.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
I mean, I literally went to the airport from like a nightclub back then.
Um, it was, it was a bit rough.
Yeah.
You left Burgheim and then went to your internship at Mugaritz basically is what you say.
Katablau.
He left Katablau after three days.
No, it was, uh, it was actually Club de Vizier.
And I had lost my passport in the club and had to find it again.
And, uh, the bouncer was like, why the fuck are you like, he, somebody like handed my
passport to the bouncer and I was like looking everywhere for it.
And then I find it in them.
So I was like, Oh my God, thank you so much.
Thank you.
And he's like, okay, sorry.
Why the fuck are you here with a passport in your, your pocket and like a backpack in
the corner?
And I'm like, yeah, I got played to catch to Spain.
When we started, when he opened the season, we were on pastry.
And Jess was on pastry and Shannon was on pastry.
I was on pastry and then our CDP was Jade, who was the first, it was her first CDP position.
Yeah.
Jade, who would go on to be the head chef of Mugaritz.
I don't know what year afterwards.
We should also invite Jade to the show.
She's, she's doing an amazing wine right now.
Yeah.
She's on a luxurious vacation in my Yorktown right now.
I think that's why I haven't been able to meet up with her.
Because I really wanted to see her.
We were, we were good friends.
We were both working at Mugaritz.
Yeah.
But I was listening to an episode, one of the previous Mugaritz episodes, and you're
talking about the, uh, the, the celery, the regolith, the licorice, the, the bane of your
existence where you had to coat the celery in a thin caramel, a black caramel.
Yes.
I don't know if you mentioned it, or I don't even know if you knew, but I made that dish
for Ima's day.
Did you actually?
Yeah, that was my dish.
I didn't knew.
And I remember thinking like, this is going to be so hard to do.
It really opens up my section.
So that's actually how you met.
I was telling Eric about it too, because, um, the version you did is actually the easy
version because at one point Oswaldo, like I was working with Oswaldo, uh, during the
Ima's day period, he was like my commanding officer and I'd report to him and he wanted
it to look like a classic black licorice candy.
So he wanted it to have ridges and things on it.
So there was a setup where instantly you had the, uh, the lactose, uh, the way you do it,
the lactose is in the container, but this, this way was lactose in a stainless steel
bowl and then the base of the, um, the sauce gun, like the little funnel where you can
pull the trigger and sauce comes out the funnel.
And then when you let go of the trigger, the sauce stops.
The little stand that you put that sauce gun in was in the bowl of lactose.
And then you would take the ring mold of the, the perfect film of caramel, quickly take
it out, put it into the, it sits in this stand for the funnel, spin the bowl.
And then as it's spinning, slowly drop the, uh, the celery through so that you had that
side spiral, uh, the spiral ridges, um, on, on the cake.
Did that work?
It worked, but both Oswaldo and I were like, don't do that.
If you can imagine, like this is for like one or two pieces where you're trying to do
it, like in a service or it's like five or six of these, how many bowls are you going
to have going?
Like you just, you're just going to be one intern in the back of the two mission start
kitchen spinning stainless steel holes and dropping celery through a, through a ring
mold like that'll never happen.
So what you got was actually the easy version.
So Walter.
Yeah.
And I mean, like it was, it's just like you say, it was kind of like doing one was fine,
you know, um, doing the second one was maybe okay also, you know, but then like doing the
third one and the fourth one, by the time you did the fourth one, like I remember this
like one service where I was just like, there was just like five, it was obviously one of
the first services like in the first month after this like mock service period, um, had
passed and Julieta was just shouting at me and Jada also, you know, he was just screaming
at me, this is like, why the fuck is the legalese?
And I was just like, by the time I do the fourth one, the first one is like soggy and
like I, and it's just getting sent back.
And I was like, man, I can't physically keep saying this.
This is, you know, it's just a sisyphus pushing up a boulder up the hill.
Yeah.
And this was on this, you were on the same section, this and the no root cellar.
Well the koozie, was it koozie meringue?
No, it was some other kind of meringue.
You had to make a nervous koozie and then cut perfect squares out of it.
And you had, it was a coffee buttercream.
That was delicious.
I helped myself to a coffee buttercream on many an occasion, just like on a spoon or
on a finger or something like that.
It's delicious.
It was very good.
But that was also something that had to be built a la minute or something.
And it was like very rarely was it correct.
So you were just taking it on all ends about all of your museum classes, just disastrous,
but that nothing to do with you.
It was just very difficult recipes.
Man, honestly, but it was like, that was my first like, like me dipping my toes into like
the Mugara's experience.
And that was my first section.
I had the fucking regalize and the Russo.
I feel like I mentioned it before because this koozie meringue, it like disappeared
in your mouth.
And it was like actually a cool idea of having this like very heavy looking buttery sort
of honey, Russian honey cake looking like a dessert that when you eat it completely
disappears and there's like, there was only buttercream like on the outside, but on the
inside it was like lactose powder and instant coffee powder.
So you have to flavor of this like coffee cake, but none of the like heaviness and creaminess,
but you would like scrape, you know, try to hold this like meringue sandwich and try to
like with an offset spatula, scrape the buttermilk on the sides neatly without the meringue getting
stained.
But also it's like sweltering 30 degrees outside.
That's how I remember it.
Anyway, the meringue sticking to your fingers and disappearing in your fingerprints and things
like that.
Exactly.
And my God, it was just a nightmare.
And I was like, what the fuck am I doing here?
Like as you say, like, oh, you got it from like all the ends, but I was actually just
thinking like, I'm just, I'm just shit at this, you know, like I'm just pretty bad at
this job.
What about Phil running in the mornings?
The story you told me, Kevin.
Yeah.
Well, last impression I have of you apart from our many Chuleta excursions where we
had Chuleta for dessert as well, which we might talk about in a little bit as well,
was just for a good chunk of time when we were living together, you would run barefoot.
Like you would just go for a run in the vast country with no shoes on.
And I was like, who is this guy?
Like what a lunatic.
But it would be like, you wouldn't have running shorts.
You were in jeans and like a purple hoodie or something.
You just go running.
I didn't actually remember this until like Eric teased at the fact that you guys talked
about this the other day and it just all came back to me.
And I mean, I mean, yeah, I can, you know, now with a bit of distance, I can see how
that might seem really unhinged because I mean, I mean it was.
But you know, I didn't own any running shorts.
I didn't own any running shoes.
So yeah.
Oh, okay.
That's the reason.
That makes sense.
Okay.
And living on the side of a mountain, there's nothing to do.
Yeah.
I enjoyed my, I enjoyed my, you know, mountain, mountain man runs.
I mean, the best country is really exceptionally beautiful.
It was a very, I mean, it's a very strange sort of like living situation that we had
there, you know, I mean, like with this, like, you have to imagine a big house in between
two villages, fairly small villages in the best countryside on top of a hill.
It was not a hit.
It was a mountain.
We climbed them.
It was a half hour walk up a mountain from the nearest grocery store.
I think a hill doesn't, doesn't really, doesn't really explain it.
Does it?
Yeah.
I once I tried to skate down this hill, I bought like a little penny board.
Oh my God.
I don't know why I thought it was a good idea because it's like steep as fuck.
So I start going down this hill at brand new shoes, you know, like brand new vans.
I start going down this hill and I realized, man, this was a really, really terrible idea
because either I just commit and I go like 80 miles an hour down this fucking hill or
I go, go for the side and try not to hit a cow.
Or option number three, I'll try to break my, my speed right now.
So I put my foot down the tip of my foot and try to break the speed and the fucking road
just burned a hole through my entire shoe or to my toes.
So I had to go for option two.
Yeah.
And so it was a mountain.
Yeah.
But yeah, what a strange living situation.
I mean, sort of like the characters that we lived in and kind of like a lot of the people
like I also forgot about at one point, Eric and me, we were talking about people quitting
and the stash.
And like, I remember there was this one guy who was with us like for two weeks and then
in the morning.
Cause yeah.
And he climbed out a window.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I wasn't, I wasn't sure what I remembered it correctly.
Cause it sounds so ludicrous.
Like he couldn't open the door for some reason.
He threw his backpack.
Yeah.
And he climbed out the window like we're all like there and we're like, who was this guy
doing?
He puts his backpack out the window, jumps out and it starts walking.
Like, all right, guess it wasn't for him.
I mean, just say you're leaving.
That's perfectly fine.
You know, like nobody's going to hit you or something.
Yeah.
I mean, we were just like all getting ready to like collectively drive to the restaurant
in the morning and this guy just bolts, which is very strange because you're like in the
middle of fucking nowhere.
Like there's no go to really.
Yeah.
But I mean, our group, especially there's a lot of people who went on to do great things
as well.
Like, Santiago, obviously of coal now in Mayfair in London was on the cover of GQ magazine
or something like that.
I still, I give them shit about that all the time.
I'm like, now remember as small people when you couldn't make lentil properly for staff
meal.
You didn't just say that.
Chet has one of the best Indian restaurants in London right now.
I mean, Jess is at Gerald's.
Shannon was working at some excellent restaurants in Chicago now or she was, I don't know where
she is now, but her and I have lost touch unfortunately, but I send her a message every
so often.
But there's a lot of cool people that we met in that house.
Like there were like 20 of us.
Yeah, absolutely.
For me, I know maybe you had your moments of not liking so many people being around
all the time, but for me personally, being around people who were into what I was into,
like food and cooking in restaurants.
And you know, there were days where you and I would like look at photos of the tasting
menu at a linea or something like that.
Like that's something I never experienced in my life before.
I never was able to do that with friends from school or family or anything like that.
So to me, I look at those 11 months living in that house as like a very formative part
of my life, is the friendships and the people I got to meet and live with.
Yeah, 100%.
Yeah, for me, I have to say exactly the same.
I never was like in a place surrounded by people where you could share cookbooks and
talk about the culinary techniques.
And that's actually what we would do all day long.
We would work in a restaurant and then talk about the work and techniques and these kind
of things.
So that was kind of like the way.
Yeah, absolutely.
And like for me, honestly, you know, especially when this discussion comes up, it's sort of
like all starging, you know, is it worth it?
Is it not worth it?
You know, and you know, I mean, like I learned some things in Mougarets, you know, it's not
the style of food that like I cook, you know, or that I want to cook.
I still learned a lot of stuff.
But for me, by far, the most valuable thing, the thing that I really like appreciate and
treasured the most, honestly, is like absolutely invaluable to me is, you know, exactly that
is the people that you meet and like life long friendships, you know, like the friendships
that you and I have, you know, it's just like for me, that's something so extremely special
and valuable, and I could not imagine, you know, not having that.
It was super, apart from the fact that so much knowledge is shared and so many impressions,
you know, it's like what you're saying, like, it's not just about working there, but like
on your days off, you know, like the times we made like, you know, chili crab with Terrence
and bak kut teh and stuff like that.
And like going out to eat and just kind of having these experiences and not just having
these culinary experiences and inputs, but also being able to kind of ping pong off each
other and talk about it.
Many del dias have French Dia.
All those, all those great moments.
Do you remember when we, there was the top 50, the 50 best restaurants and we streamed
it at the house.
Yes, of course.
Cause someone, I don't know if it was me or someone else got it on their computer and
we had like a massive viewing party of all of us in the living room.
There's a, there's a photo of us crowded onto a single couch in like whatever semblance
of pajamas we had on cause it was on a day off and we did, everyone did wagers and bets
on who would get number one.
And we all watched it together.
Like that was really cool.
Do you have that photo?
Yeah, it's somewhere.
I'll send it to you after, after we record.
Oh, please.
That'd be amazing.
Kevin, what can you say about Mugarrich philosophy and your thoughts on it?
Like the working methodology and all these kinds of things.
So I mean, this right now as a recording, I had some people send me this tick tock video
of some influencer who went to Mugarrich and hated everything.
And they've logged to the whole meal and they were like, yeah, it's just this and this with
barbecue sauce and this didn't taste good.
And they gave me a weird fuzzy moldy potato blanket and they didn't buy into it.
And the first thing that they say to us when we start Mugarrich and I don't know if it's
the same for you, Eric, when you start there too, but they say that they're not trying
to be the most delicious restaurant in the world.
They want to be provocative.
Yeah, absolutely.
That was already part of the core thought back then already in 2005.
I think that's from the very beginning.
Yeah.
And they're not trying to make a tasty menu of, you know, stunner 10 out of 10 perfect
dishes.
They're trying to provoke thoughts and perspective.
And they're looking at it in the same way that an artist looks at a canvas in a gallery,
right?
There's that the famous what a few years ago, someone duct taped a banana to a wall and
in a gallery and people lost their minds over like, this isn't art.
This is like parody or whatever.
And in the end, that banana, like for what, two dollars of banana and a little piece of
duct tape strapped to a wall had millions of people around the world talking about it.
And if that is not art, I don't know what is.
Yeah.
And that's what Mugarrich is trying to do.
They're not trying to make delicious food.
They just want you to experience emotion and self thought and opinion and hopefully growth
over the course of a meal so that when you leave, you're different than when you walk
through the doors.
And I think that's something people can't grasp if they're trying to go to a two mission
star restaurant, the classic way.
I think that's exactly what they're best at.
Like this kind of contextualizing and involving your experience in a storytelling setting better
than anyone else.
I cannot think of another restaurant who is better at that because I can think of other
restaurants that are better, perhaps more technical or delicious or something else.
But this specific thing, maybe, I don't know, maybe the very soul comes to mind, but I don't
know them that well, but that pops up so that I could think of.
But I mean, up until then, nobody went as deep through that path as they did.
And I think that that's quite an achievement.
Like the story you told me the other day where they were like, what was it?
Croquetas?
That one was broken?
Do you want to tell the story?
That Donnie came out to the table and said, oh, I'm giving you this one because this is
the best way to have it.
Was that me or was that someone else?
I was there when that story was told.
I don't think I told it though.
Well, the story, maybe it was John Reggifold?
Oh, it might've been.
Yeah.
Because we were all outside of the society talking.
Yeah.
There were like, I don't know, like let's say croqueta, just to say an idea.
It could be whatever, like a different dish of something.
But there were like four pieces and one was like broken.
You know, it has like a line where the filling would come out.
And in that specific moment, it wasn't possible to replace it.
So it had to go out.
You know, like what do you do in that moment?
You know, like how do you fix that?
So like, I don't know if the story is true or not, but it's a very good story.
So like that Andoni himself went out and to the person who would get the broken one, he
told him, you're getting the broken one because this is the best way when it breaks, because
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
Right?
So, and the, I think the, the, the lesson here is transforming a mistake into a, like,
you're not the loser for getting the broken one.
You're the luckiest one.
Right?
Yeah.
Everything's relative.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And, and this kind of thing, like understanding that, that, and such a sensorial experience
as it is going to a restaurant, this things really have an impact in your experience.
It's really changed, these are the memorable moments or the ones you will talk about, like
the banana on the wall, you know?
I mean, like back in the day, I don't think like they still did that when, when we were
there, but I mean, back in the day you would get an envelope at Mugaris and one said, submit
and the other said, rebel or something like that.
Right?
Yeah.
In my times we had it too.
Yeah.
And I mean, like that kind of like really sums it up.
It's sort of like, well, you know, you can kind of like, you know, go against it a little
bit and you're still going to get like interesting and nice food, or you can like really actually
submit and kind of let go of your, of the ideas that you bring with you into the restaurant
and just really open your mind and let yourself get taken along this, you know, brainchild
of these chefs that maybe will resonate with you, you know?
And I think that's really cool.
I don't really know a lot of restaurants where they do that, where it's like very specific
ideas or like uncomfortable, uncomfortable feelings that are like getting tackled.
It's almost like therapy in a way, you know, it's kind of like the moldy, the moldy apple
or something like that, you know, the tempeh with the grass, you know, where, or even like,
you know, you remember the vanilla bean?
Yeah, the Alezzo.
Yeah, exactly.
I thought that was so cool.
It was such a small thing and it was like, I mean, you know, like it was okay, didn't
taste bad or anything, but I thought that the idea of like, you know, when you have
this juicy vanilla pod and you kind of just like, it just looks so inviting to bite into
it, but you can't eat it.
And then making that possible that you can actually bite into this really juicy vanilla
pod.
I thought this is such a cool like-
Because the Alezzo, it was like a fern or something, right?
It was something like a fiddlehead fern or something?
Fiddlehead fern and it gets fermented in ash.
And yeah, it gets like boiled and then fermented in ash or whatever.
And then it just basically just changes the texture and then it gets infused with vanilla
and coated in vanilla sugar and then put into a glass-
The little tube that the vanilla comes in, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
In a glass tube.
And it's so like, it's, I mean, it's kind of like, it's not a lot, right?
But because you have this like association with it and suddenly something that's not
been possible before is possible to you.
It kind of breaks your perception of reality a little bit.
And that's really, really cool.
Well, did you ever eat it, Mobeer?
I didn't actually.
No?
I was too poor.
I did when I was there in 2005 and I had the, they had two menus, the Naturan, which was
a Vanguard and the Sustriac.
Naturan means nature and Sustriac means roots in Basque.
So I had the Sustriac one and super nice menu.
I still, for me, that's my favorite epoch in Mugara.
It's like the Chlorophyllia epoch.
And I still have the book here at home and I open it and I think those pictures are beautiful
and the recipes would come with this free writing, like poems and prose about specific
herbs.
It's a beautiful book.
Did you eat at Mugara's?
I finally ate there in 2022, like, you know, a decade after I finished my internship.
Just to like kind of close the circle because I was curious about it.
And the first course on that menu was the ceramic of a face where they would put the
onion gel and flowers and you were supposed to, they're like, this is to mimic the first
kiss or the first like hot make out of your life.
And you're supposed to use, don't like just pick up the face and like make out with the
ceramic and eat the flowers and the gel and everything altogether.
And it's like, it's an icebreaker.
It's the first course of the menu, right?
So it's at that point, that's their statement they have to, you decide then to buy in or
to submit or to resist.
And I was in solo diner.
So from sitting at this table making out with my porcelain face by myself, like I completely
bought it and I loved it.
And then I look over and there's a floor top of like, I think Dutch tourists who didn't
buy in and like they got this, like we started around the same time and I'm sure they saw
me doing my thing with my face in the corner.
And they asked for cutlery because they're like, we're not gonna pick this up and do
what you want us to do.
And at that point you kind of, like it ruins it for you.
It ruins it for the restaurants.
And then also like the people around you as well, because it's one thing to say, no, I
want to eat it with cutlery and you're by yourself and no one else sees you.
But when, you know, if let's say I wasn't as jealous about this dish, if I see another
table asking for cutlery and we're like, no, I want cutlery too, because I'm self-conscious
about doing this.
Like it's really cool that you're around other people when they ask you and they ask you
to, you know, break down your barriers and submit and invest in the experience you're
about to have.
And it was, was it the best meal I've ever had?
Absolutely not.
I'm glad I ate there and, and experience the arts and the perspective of the restaurant
that you know, 10 years ago was so formative in my career.
Like for me, it was a very, very cool closing of the circle and to see the sala again and
to see the kitchen and to see where, where I wiped out carrying a tray of golinas on
the slippery floor and, and where the heat lamps were that kept hitting me in the head
because I'm tall and they would pull them low and things like that.
Like it was, it was nice to have that whole experience that I hadn't had after finishing
my internship.
I also went back then 2016 and the second time, I mean, it was a nice experience.
I have nothing to say against it.
But it's not kind of like the kind of experience I look for, I have to say.
Like, like I looked like more straightforward food, you know, like a subero or an Echevary
or an Elcano or this, this kind of places.
It is a matter of preference.
I have a closing question and that's so from when you've eaten there and the time that
you've worked there, what's your favorite Mugleritz dish and why?
Am I going first or is Eric going first or are you going first?
No, this question is just for you actually.
Oh, it's just for me.
But I want to answer too.
Okay, well let Eric go first, let Eric go first and you can think.
Okay, Eric goes first.
For sure was when I was in the pastry, the this yellow, which was like a pistachio biscuit
with a matcha tea, kuzu.
What else did it have?
Like a frozen form of orange blossom.
What else?
Yeah, I think that was it.
And I did hundreds of those and it was a, I learned many techniques with that dish and
I also had to do the portion of the frozen forms and the freezer inside at minus 40 degrees.
So it was quite an experience.
See that sounds delicious, honestly.
Yeah, it was an amazing dish.
I loved it.
Yeah, I thought you would, I would have thought you say, you would say the salad.
Potato rocks.
Yeah, the potato rocks.
And eating, there are a few like the becada.
I remember loving the becada.
I also remember the foie gras was amazing.
And also this, this potatoes that we would do that were like turn potatoes and a meat
jus with a cow tendon.
That was amazing.
And they had something else, truffles.
That truffle.
Yeah.
Nice.
But you see those dishes were very classical and very straightforward and very like, you
know, succulent and substantial fall.
And yeah.
Yeah.
Because you were there at a very different time from Phil and myself.
So that here are the dishes that you were praying versus the dishes we were doing is
really cool.
I mean, I will always treasure the Torija that we would do for the weddings.
Yes.
Because they would always make me do it.
Because no one else could figure out how to do it.
Same with me.
I was also the Torija guy when in my time.
Same with me, actually.
With the Brulee iron, right?
Which is definitely not work workplace safe.
There was like a hair iron with no safety features on it.
So it would just get like nuclear hot and then you would just have it sitting on a rock
on your stage.
And you're like, how is that safe?
Right.
How is someone not attached to that and sear themselves?
But there was also Phil, I don't know if you remember the Chuleta.
We would do the Chuleta serving and it would be like you get like a small big piece of
menu size piece, but then there was a perfect canal of Chuleta butter that was half rendered
and smoked Chuleta fat.
And then they added flaxseed, mucilage to it.
And I think it's ania, which I still don't know what that is.
And then you would blend it in a thermal mix and it would turn into like an ice cream texture.
But it wouldn't when it was cold, it wouldn't go granular like a like Chuleta fat would
because there was enough emulsifier in there.
It kept it creamy.
So you get your Chuleta with some kind of herbs dressed in jus and this canal of Chuleta
butter.
And that butter specifically was really awesome to me.
And then I remember we would do a alfaldre of cordero, which is lamb.
And it was like the fat cap of the lamb.
And we rendered it slowly over the fire so that the fat all rendered and dropped out.
And you were left with basically a skeleton of thin like protein filaments so that it
shattered like puff pastry.
And that was a garnish on the lamb loin that we served.
That was a really cool technique.
I really like that.
I snacked on a lot of that and to my own detriment because that was on my section once I moved
over to Carnes.
Yeah.
You're not getting away Phil.
Meat?
Okay.
I definitely, I have a very specific favorite dish.
The licorice.
Yeah, of course.
Followed right by the never realized loose flour salad in a seafood sphere of sugar.
Oh yes, the balloon.
I forgot about that.
Yeah.
The impossible dream.
So I think I mentioned it before, but there was one time where, I don't know whether it
was because diners had come too many times and they were running out of dishes or something,
but Ramon, especially Ramon rift up a dish.
It was in an autumn, it was game season and he rift up this dish of becava, which is snipe
and he basically make like a snipe stew together with salted cod and trails, which sounds horrible.
Like a salted cod tripe.
Like a swim bladder?
Yeah.
Not like the, yeah, the tripe.
Like it was the tripe.
Yeah, that's a, yeah, that's actually, it has nothing to do with urine or anything,
but it's a swimming bladder.
Yeah.
And it was like, it was so delicious.
It had this gaminess meatiness, but at the same time it had this like funky fishy salt
cod flavor and gave the sauce is like lip smacking stickiness.
And I was like, man, that's such a group, like the such a fucking gourmet thing.
You know, it's like, it's like a St. Pierre poached in, in Villejoux, you know, this
like combination of like a red mullet was like a duck consomme, you know, it's like
this, this kind of really old school, but very sensitive cooking of mixing different
terrains and that was absolutely amazing.
I thought it was just ridiculous to delicious.
That's it for this week's episode of potluck food talks.
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