Pilar Salas
Madrid (EFE).- Martín Berasategui, the Spanish-speaking chef with the most Michelin stars and Repol suns -he has twelve in each guide- continues to consider himself an “eternal apprentice” even when he undertakes new projects such as returning Club Allard to its culinary glory.
The Basque chef, who started in the family business Bodegón Alejandro at the age of 15, now has 500 people under his charge in a group that continues to grow, now run by El Club Allard and Madrí Madre, both in Madrid.
With “enormous respect” for those who have preceded him -Diego Guerrero, María Marte, José Carlos Fuentes and Cristina Rubina-, Berasategui could not “say no” to the offer to run this restaurant that had and lost two Michelin stars and that He hopes to recover them with a kitchen that meets both the standards of the chef from San Sebastian and the stately Casa Gallardo building.
“It is a huge challenge,” says EFE who puts all his know-how into his projects and considers himself “privileged” for being the “chosen” one so that Club Allard “recovers what, by right and trajectory, is his: a place of weight in the culinary history of our country”.
He conceives it as his “home in Madrid”, just like the “mother house” in Lasarte (Guipúzcoa) or the one in Barcelona -both three-starred-, where he will offer some of his classics and “an à la carte suit”.
Martín Berasategui’s proposal at El Club Allard
At the moment, his proposal at El Club Allard is based on two tasting menus (thirteen and ten passes) to which a menu will be added in April, with dishes such as warm salad with 14 sprouts and shellfish (one of his icons). , scallop with quail egg, crunchy kale and caulifor cream; tear quisante with sea urchin, tupimambo and pig trotter ramen or sea bass with beurre blanc, seaweed dashi and beetroot.
It also includes a meat proposal with Galician blonde cow tenderloin matured for 30 days with chard and foie and desserts such as shisho with matcha tea jelly and warm sake.
On April 14, he announced to EFE, he will open Madrí Madre, another more “tavern” concept that makes him especially excited. “If Club Allard is the luxury of Martín Berasategui, the other is a tavern that takes me back to my origins”, comments who defines himself as “enjoyment” and willing to “give everything” in each project.
Always praised by his colleagues for his ability to form teams that bear his name in restaurants inside and outside of Spain, for El Club Allard he has chosen José María Goñi as head chef, heir to a perfectionism that is reflected in the dishes.
“We disembarked in Madrid with great desire and all the ambition, but with humility and respect for a city that, gastronomically and personally, has always been an example for me and has my total admiration,” says the man from San Sebastián, who He continues to feel like “an eternal learner” for whom new challenges do not cause stress: “On the contrary, I feel privileged.”
