San Sebastián (EFE).- Thyme, asparagus, abundance, hump, gizzard, sugus and “smile” are some of the words that define the 2023 menu at Mugaritz, the restaurant by chef Andoni Luis Aduriz, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary.
In this “workshop of perplexities” that is his establishment, the Basque chef has given a new twist to his proposals for the season that begins this Saturday.
Andoni Luis Aduriz celebrates 25 years of Mugaritz
After the closure of six months in which he and his team put their creativity to the test, the establishment located in the rural area of Errenteria (Gipuzkoa), with two Michelin stars, has opened its doors this Friday for the dress rehearsal each year . A group of people who have participated in a raffle have enjoyed it for free.
Andoni Luis Aduriz, at one point in the interview. EFE/Javi Colmenero
Mugaritz celebrates its first quarter of a century this season and for this reason it will offer an experience of 25 “moments” that will have an oxymoron as its common thread: “memories of the future”.
The chef’s paradoxes and curiosity
Aduriz says in an interview with EFE that he likes “paradoxes and metaphors”, but that his essence is “curiosity”. “All that is in the background is curiosity. If I’m afraid of something, it’s waking up one day without that mood. I would be sorry for that to go out, I think I would die”, says the chef from San Sebastián.
He also uses a single word, unpredictability, to condense in it what Mugaritz has been in these 25 years. During this time they have tried and changed their techniques and ways of doing and creating, but they have always tried to “get the best possible version” in a search in which they have shown themselves to be “porous, flexible and adaptive”.
The new proposals
In this experimentation that some praise and others decry, Aduriz also likes to play “make you uncomfortable”. On this year’s menu, on the ceramic faces with which he urged diners to pass their tongues in previous editions, this time he has built “La piel que habito”, for which he has borrowed the title from Pedro’s film Almodovar.
The face, a dish that this year will taste like cider. EFE/Juan Herrero
Now, Mugaritz’s customers, a significant percentage of whom are foreigners, will have to peel off a skin with an “autochthonous flavor” from those crockery faces, that of cider.
“Having an idea is fine, but resolving it properly is not so easy,” says the chef, who has spent “a couple” of years concretizing that recipe.
“One of the things that I like the most about this kind of factory, a workshop of perplexities are the reactions of the diners,” he remarks. “We add a lot of creativity to what we do, trying to reach people so that, in turn, they can also display theirs”, adds Andoni Luis Aduriz.
He assures that “creative people get like motorcycles” and “optimistic people die of laughter”. “On the contrary, people who are skeptical confirm that this is a cult and those who are negative end up convinced that we are predators and scoundrels,” she says.
Customer responses
The responses from the clientele “are amazing,” he points out. “They teach you all the ‘pantone’ of the human condition again. Sensitive people come here, people who are absolutely motivated and people who come because they have to come, ”she adds.
And there are those who have never set foot in Mugaritz in their lives and, instead, are fans of the restaurant. “Today more gastronomy is consumed in the virtual world than in the real one. There are followers who have never come to eat and communities are generated among them. Everyone has a voice and an opinion, ”he points out.
For this reason, he believes that if these two worlds and what each one thinks of their culinary proposals were crossed, “a 3D image of Mugaritz would be obtained, the Andoni Luis Aduriz restaurant that has already started its 25th season. anniversary.