”Constructionist” haute cuisine comprising weird and wonderful servings of limitless invention has won Argentinian chef extraordinaire Miguel Sanchez Romera a Michelin star, the first latino to receive such an accolade.
His burgeoning reputation has spread to the extent that when the 52-year-old from Cordoba recently unveiled his latest ”total cooking” collection it was in the presence of influential Japanese culinary maestro Ishida.
Ishida’s elite restaurant in Tokyo’s swanky Ginza district serves just eight per sitting and reservations are required a year in advance.
Sanchez Romera’s concoctions are similarly imaginative.
They include turnip marinated in rosewater with forget-me-not petals, mayonnaise and fruits de mer, fruit juices containing fresh coconut and the perfume of dry flowers, Beluga caviar and even gold garnishing with olive oil.
Underpinning his galaxy of offerings are five classic staples of Spanish cuisine, such as a range of barbecued fish and seafood, grilled back of lamb, polenta and a range of spices dressed with vegetable infusions and a hint of mint.
Romera, or simply, ‘MSR’, holds court at his L’Esguard eatery in the village of Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, about 35km north of Barcelona, where flashbulbs flashed and television crews jostled for position as he unveiled his ”spring-summer collection,” the event bearing all the hallmarks of a fashion show.
MSR combined his prandial passions with a career as a neurologist until 1996, when he opened his restaurant. Within three years he had won a Michelin star and has since earned a global reputation as being in the culinary vanguard.
L’Esguard houses a cookery library of more than 1 500 books, as well as a wine cellar with about 560 choice selections on offer. It also houses a cheese cellar and an exhibition of top Iberian hams.
But it is MSR’s ”Total Cooking”, which he defines as ”a means of understanding today’s world through the prism of cooking”.
Lying at the heart of this new gastronomic development is the belief that ”what’s cooking on the stove is a creative part of life itself, an intelligent means of perceiving sensations with all senses alert”.
Adding a smidgen of garnished gold and silver, MSR doffs his cap to the principle that that is in keeping with the noble tradition of both western and oriental cooking.
After presenting his collection, Sanchez Romera gave sector specialists a run-down of what’s what in his newly-renovated restaurant and the chance to leaf through some of his library’s contents.
In passing he opined that he and Ishida have an ”obsession with teasing out flavour and a keenness for the creative process on the basis that we put content ahead of form”.
”Constructionism is the philosophy; total cooking is what results. My cuisine is based on elements and associated formulae which are already known save that the actual final result is different. I define this as constructionism,” says the Argentine.
MSR and Ishida believe that what should define a dish is its taste, its smell, and its actual texture, but believe that the third of those elements should remain relatively in the background, more so than they see as having been the case recently in western cuisine.
”Ishida’s cuisine, as my own, leaves the texture aside as we pre-suppose that it will be that of the food item itself,” Sanchez Romera states.
”Texture induces taste; it is not the precept for taste.” – Sapa-AFP