It awakens mixed feelings in Spanish gastronomy. Many hate him, some love him and almost everyone respects him. For decades he was the most feared critic. Whenever he entered a restaurant, Rafael García Santos (Santander, 69 years old) praised the chef on duty mercilessly. There are renowned personalities who recognize that his words did not fall on deaf ears and that thanks to him they decided to take part in these glorious years of gastronomy. First with the new Basque cuisine and later with the global success of elBulli. And precisely in 2012, shortly after Ferran Adrià closed the legendary restaurant in Cala Montjoi (Roses, Girona), the journalist decided to put down his sharp pen. He talks about everything and everyone in the conversation he had with EL PAÍS, whom he met in Madrid at the restaurant La Falda, specializing in potato omelette, the culinary revolution that leads him to travel around Spain – him organizes the potato omelette championship –. and work 16 hours a day in search of the best. Without being ashamed, he explains that he has always had a natural gift for criticism. Now he’s doing it against the system too. Still without leaving a doll with a head. And many of them will applaud him enthusiastically this Monday when he receives the Pau Albornà i Torras Prize for Gastronomic Journalism in the city where he lives and within the framework of the San Sebastián Gastronomika, which will be celebrated until the 11th.
Questions. Do you have to work so many hours?
Answer. I’ve always done well working such long hours. Anyone who is successful in life works about 14 hours. You have to differentiate between whether you work just to earn a living or whether you work for personal fulfillment. The successful chefs are dedicated to their work.
Q Have you made money as a food critic?
R. I have earned enough to do whatever I want. I invest in the stock market and it’s doing well, although the tortilla competition costs me a lot of money. I do not accept advertising. And what I do now is to give back to society what it gave to me. I haven’t calculated what I spend, but it could easily be 30,000 euros per year to promote the tortilla revolution in Spain.
Q You always insist on your righteousness. Are critics independent now?
R. There are no critics. Any name? The system does not support them. The chefs killed the critics. Here a revolution was carried out to gain power and when they arrived they only cared about money, fame and ego. There was an ideality, cooking was considered an art and there was ethics. There used to be chefs, but now they don’t even enter the kitchen, some don’t know them in their restaurant, and many don’t even have a restaurant, they are managers of other people’s businesses. To achieve this, we made a revolution. I helped them all, but now they don’t care about what I say anymore.
Q Do you admire any chefs?
R. I don’t want to talk about the current kitchen. My time was different and the revolution ended in 2011.
Q When does elBulli close?
R. It more or less coincided with that date. The revolution was not made by elBulli. It is created like the potato omelette. In 1976, through the Club de Gourmets, we saw the rise of French cuisine and saw in Spain why it was not made here and copied in the Basque Country and all other countries. Nouvelle cuisine is exported all over the world. There will come a time when there will be no more revolution. There are 10-year periods in which a chef develops global leadership. In the seventies there was Michel Guérard, in the eighties Joël Robuchon, in the nineties Michel Bras, in 2000 Ferran Adrià, and since 2010 there has not been a chef of historical importance.
This has become a lie and this is a total failure. There is a cancer that has destroyed haute cuisine. This emerged as an artistic movement, people wanted to be artists, but you have to invest 16 hours a day in learning and thinking.
RAFAEL GARCIA SANTOS
Q But isn’t there a chef who inspires you?
R. Not to the same extent as a historical figure, the one I liked the most was René Redzepi. I like Bittor Arginzoniz because he made his campfire revolution in Etxebarri, a kitchen full of products as opposed to a kitchen without products, as is the case in today’s cuisine. The new Basque cuisine is in a phase of exhaustion. At the age of 40 or 50, chefs run out of imagination. It was like nouvelle cuisine, but of an incredible standard. A replacement was needed here and a generation came with new ideas. We, who were very humble, very simple and ignorant people, brought the French and Italians to teach us how to do what they did. And we committed ourselves to innovation, to generating these new ideas, and we began to acculturate and develop non-conformist and creative concepts that we have always believed in. An initiative arose in which all starving people in the country joined and became chefs. And then with artists. This movement emerged in plurality. They had to be taught to think and develop their project. This is how the Spanish avant-garde kitchen movement came into being. People identify him with elBulli because he was the one who monopolized him in terms of fame. Everyone wanted to be Ferran Adrià.
Q Is there nothing left of it?
R. This ends in 2011. The progress of the elBulli affects it, but it also ends because they grow old and because they become bourgeois and corrupt. There is another important factor: the economic crisis of 2009 was very severe and in the process the hospitality industry collapsed. Chefs are rock stars, they are interested in living like gentlemen and being considered.
Q Could there be something interesting there?
R. Nothing from here. Do you see someone talking about their work, what concepts they develop, what techniques they develop, and what contributions they make to society? They are on something else. This has become a lie and this is a total failure. There is a cancer that has destroyed haute cuisine. This emerged as an artistic movement, people wanted to be artists, but you have to invest 16 hours a day in learning and thinking. You are investing this time to engage in an activity where you lose money and have to earn it through other activities. So they devote themselves to these other activities and no one devotes themselves to thinking. There is no solution.
Q There are more and more gastronomic training schools.
R. But they are part of society’s lies. No name comes from there. None have come out in the last 10 years. The system is dead. That’s why Noma is closing too.
They don’t care about the customer, they shamelessly deceive him. Who pays 500 euros to go to a restaurant?
RAFAEL GARCIA SANTOS
Q Who currently has a future in the restaurant industry?
R. The best restaurant that is currently inventing gastronomy is McDonald’s. It appeals to new generations and connects new customers. And it removes the waiters and cooks. It uses artificial intelligence, which is on its way to flooding the hotel industry. That’s the future. Then these chefs will come and say they invented it. McDonald’s is supposed to feed you, although I wouldn’t say it’s gastronomy, but it’s the future.
Rafael García Santos, organizer of the Spanish Potato Tortilla Championship, at La Falda restaurant in Madrid, winner of the latest edition of the filled tortilla competition. INMA FLORES
Q And you’re looking for the revolution in the tortilla.
R. It’s something where it’s possible for a revolution to happen because there’s been a lot of mediocrity, and revolutions are made when things go badly, when there’s a breeding ground. We cast the rod out to fish and don’t know where people will show up. There will always be people in the world who are hungry and want to become a winner. And we want to make the revolution with these people. Many people eat potato omelettes.
Q Is the obsession with awards and recognition too great?
R. But they are wrong. You should want to be happy. They want to live well based on history. What is the motivation of those who advise 15 restaurants? They don’t care about the customer, they shamelessly deceive him. Who pays 500 euros to go to a restaurant?
Q Will many restaurants close?
R. But they are closed. They live off four foreigners, on advice and other things.
Q What do you live from?
R. If I were born again, I would never pursue gastronomy. I’m now making a lot of money on the stock market. You just have to get along with yourself and be smarter than everyone else because you’re playing with the smartest people in the world. The chefs don’t think they are artists.
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