ANDONI LUIS ADURIZ

Chef Owner- Mugaritz (2 Michelin stars), San Sebastian, Spain

This is a very special year for Mugaritz as it turns 25! Every year Mugaritz establishes a concept that serves as the guiding thread of the proposal they develop for that year. In this period of creativity, one of the things they have in mind is reflecting on the deception of mind and memory. He doesn’t ruminate on choosing between nouvelle or avant-garde and traditional cuisine. “For me, the frontier is between good and bad cooking. It doesn’t matter whether it is traditional or creative. I think new luxury underscores genuine and authentic. Traditional cuisine that is well done and loyal to its roots is just as likely to inspire and delight as new cuisines that add to it and explore a different narrative that explores new ideas. Either they come with a significant amount of authorship or they are simply casual, but they do not pretend to do much more than what they know how to do: execute a recipe well”, explains Andoni. He strongly believes that Gastronomy and art share many mechanisms even though they employ different languages. Both disciplines aim to reveal something to its admirers, those who can perceive it, can feel that special something. www.mugaritz.com/en/

Culinary focus in 2023

“I believe gastronomy is a reflection of society. When a society is poor, they eat humbly. There has always been a parallelism between what we eat and the trajectory of a society’s evolution. Therefore, if we can identify how society will be in the future, we will be able to try to predict trends in cuisine. In the case of Mugaritz, I do not know where we will be in the future; the only thing we are clear about is where we do not want to be”.