His poisonous comments about 'showbiz cuisine' and unhealthy additives mean the knives are out for a traditional Spanish chef who may or may not be envious of more creative cooks, writes Jane Walker
THEY HAVEN'T YET resorted to throwing the pots and pans at one another, but Spanish chefs seem to be rivalling Gordon Ramsay in their use of colourful language, particularly when aiming it each other.
Spain's kitchen brigade is up in arms after 51-year-old Catalan chef Santi Santamaría, whose three restaurants enjoy a total of six Michelin stars, criticised his colleagues for "showbiz cuisine" and accused them of using potentially harmful chemicals to achieve their elaborate dishes.
"Many chefs are more concerned with spectacular, rather than healthy, eating," sneers Santamaría.
The essence of the row boils down to traditional Mediterranean cooking, as favoured by Santamaría, and the modern, imaginative cuisine of so many other Spanish chefs.
"Santamaría thinks everyone should serve the kind of food his grandmother used to cook. But there is room for everyone. It's a bit like the difference between the haute couture of the catwalk, which not everyone wants to wear, and those who prefer to wait until it is toned down and hits the high street," says food critic Julia Ceballos.
The opening shots in this war of toques were fired earlier this month when Santamaría, owner of the Can Fabes restaurant, north of Barcelona, the San Celoni in Madrid, and a third in the Hotel Arts in Barcelona, won first prize for his new book La Cocina al Desnudo ( The Kitchen Laid Bare).
Instead of the traditional speech expected on such occasions, thanking the judges for their decision, Santamaría launched into a scathing attack on today's Spanish haute cuisine and on Spanish modern chefs in general.
The main targets for his attacks were fellow Catalan Ferran Adriá, whose El Bulli restaurant in Roses, on the Costa Brava, was recently voted best restaurant in the world for the third year running, and Juan Mari Arzak of San Sebastián, the father of modern Basque cuisine and owner of one of the first Spanish restaurants to win three Michelin stars. Adriá and Arzak have been credited with putting Spanish cooking on the gastronomic map of the world, but Santamaría says their method is all wrong.
"They have opened the doors of their restaurants to big chemical industries and are using unhealthy additives," he claims. "Additives from the fast food industry have invaded the world of haute cuisine."
Santamaría has called for legislation to force chefs to list the ingredients of each dish on their menus.
Madrid chef Abraham García, of Madrid's Viridiana restaurant, is an exponent of modern innovative cooking who is not against the use of certain additives, although he says he does not use them himself. But he is against listing ingredients on menus. "Our clients should have confidence in our cooking," he says.
Sergi Arola, formerly of the two-star La Broche restaurant in Madrid, denied using dangerous additives. "Of course we use some additives. Even salt and pepper are additives, and the use of lemon juice or vinegar are chemical processes. Cooking itself is a chemical process, whether we like it or not," he says.
El Bulli restaurant is only open for six months each year, and there is a waiting list for more than two years for a table - as this writer is only too well aware. Adriá and his team devote the rest of the year to experimenting in their laboratory to develop new inventions to add to his menu.
Dishes include offerings such as liquid olives, melon caviar, carrot foam, Parmesan candyfloss on a stick, even the deep-fried rabbit's ears served to me on one occasion by Adriá's disciple, Paco Roncero. Many other modern chefs, such as Britain's Heston Blumenthal, of the Fat Duck restaurant near London, admit chemical processes are essential in making possible such revolutionary dishes as his own snail porridge.
One of Santamaría's main complaints is about the increased use of emulsifiers such as methyl-cellulose, a vegetable fibre which gels when heated and thickens when chilled (it is also used used in the pharmaceutical industry as a laxative).
"Ferran and I used to be good friends, but now we are conceptually and ethically divorced," says Santamaría.
Not surprisingly, chefs and foodies from Spain and elsewhere have lost no time in defending Adriá, Arzak and other exponents of modern Spanish cuisine. Euro-Toques International, the chefs' association, with 3,500 members from 18 countries (including 800 in Spain), has also declared its support for Adriá and other innovative chefs. In an angry statement, Euro-Toque's spokesman accused Santamaría of envy and of stirring up the controversy to gain publicity to sell his books. It dismissed the current row as "merely the disrespectful, uneducated opinion of one chef about his colleagues" and assured all diners that the additives used by Adriá and other chefs are legal and safe.