Mikel López Iturriaga has become one of the leading gastronomic bloggers through his site “El Comidista”. We ambushed him on his recent visit to San Sebastian, but did not need to threaten him to ensure that pintxos in San Sebastian are better that those of Bilbao: we just had to meet him at Casa Urola.
Sure, we talk about “El Comidista”, pintxos, our app… in an in-depth interview you can watch here.
Despite having closed down his three Michelin stars, Sant Pau restaurant, almost a year ago, Carme Ruscalleda is still on the ball. Either with the menus of Moments restaurant in Barcelona and Sant Pau in Tokyo (both of them owning two Michelin stars), sharing their knowledge wherever they request it, or doing research with Cuina estudi, her gastronomic laboratory. In just over a month, “San Sebastian Gastronomika” gastronomic fair will award her with the “Tribute” prize, in recognition of her career, the only female chef to own seven Michelin stars. A perfect excuse to speak to her about her vision of gastronomy and the universe of pintxos.
Carme, do you sleep better without the burden of having a 3 star Michelin restaurant?
In my everyday life, I continue to work with commitment, dedication and creativity. When the media asked me about the closure, I told them that I was going to live on continue vacation from now on, because when I closed the Sant Pau for vacation, I closed that restaurant, but everything else remained running: opened in Tokyo, opened in Barcelona, contacts with companies, schools… Therefore, now I live on constant holidays, because the Sant Pau was the piece that required more commitment and hours devoted by myself, since I felt that my presence in every service was needed. Given that the whole staff working there around me was totally committed, I was a kind of dynamo who was catalyzing all that work, and mainly for my commitment with our customers, who were making the trip and the monetary effort to meet me there.
Therefore, you have mainly freed yourself from the regular schedule routine.
That’s right. Now I have more free time, which I have quickly occupied with social commitments related to gastronomy. Now, more than ever, I am involved in adult training sessions, in colleges, in primary schools…There are weeks that I have daily commitments.
Given your keen response, I sense you have never regretted your previous decision.
No. In fact, I’m going to tell you that was a well considered decision. Me and my husband were very clear that we never would close tired and exhausted. It had to be shut down with the same utmost enthusiasm we use to open every day. Entering a restaurant venue and meet their leaders tired is really sad: that mood spreads quickly to everyone, both staff and customers. We were been open for 30 years, and we thought that was the right time to do it. In addition, we had been working for 20 years before we opened the Sant Pau, so we had a 50-year career behind us, and eager to go on!
The Sant Pau has been transformed in both a bar and also the Cuina Estudi, a venue where research and go for culinary innovation.
In fact, we started Cuina Estudi in 2004, when we opened Sant Pau in Tokyo. There, we fashioned the menus for the Tokyo venue. For instance, right now we are completing a theme menu labeled “the trees of life”: the pine, the almond tree, the apple tree… are trees of life. We made a list of 20 trees, and each one is the main character in one of the menu dishes. Here we have also developed new products and recipe books for the food industry. Now it’s our main project.
Do you enjoy cuisine more by researching, without the pressure of reviews both from customers and from Michelin Guide inspectors?
I still fell like the sword of Damocles hanging over me, both by the public review as for the scoring of gastronomic guides. I am operational, working for the Sant Pau in Tokyo and both Moments and Blanc in Barcelona. Indeed, we are responsible for all the menus served at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel: breakfast or room service, beyond its restaurants.I keep going to bed beaten and angry, searching for solutions to make sure that wouldn’t happen again. And then, next day, something else happens! Life is a learning curve that gives you energy to overcome those limitations you had.
Carme, you have pioneered the commitment to the local product, something that’s also very much present in San Sebastian pintxos taverns.
No doubt. For me, nature is the ultimate source of inspiration. The product shows you different ways to prepare it. It tells you if your ideas are or not on track. We ourselves are part or that living nature, active and fruitful, we feed on it because obviously it’s health, energy and strength, but also it is culinary pleasure, and we are devoted to pleasure!
This year, San Sebastián Gastronomika will award you the “Tribute” Prize: How did you receive the news?
That was: yikes! I am reaching retirement actively! I am a very a very activist retired woman, so I received it with that strength.
You’re the only female chef who has reached 7 Michelin stars, but you rejected the Best Woman Chef in the World appellation: Why?
There, they obviously are laughing at women. We have to claim respect always, working at the very highest level, but when some guys make a list of restaurants, and they are unable to properly understand that when there’s a leader at the restaurant, whether male or female, there is always a team made up of lots of men and women behind. Why do they get the presence of women out of perspective? So, are we doing second class work? This is not a sport were you have to measure male and female strength separately. A restaurant is the idea of a leader, either man or woman, where she or he gives ideas, builds a team, challenges them to keep working every day in their philosophy, loving the product, loving customers…Why do they do such discrimination? I wrote them a lot when the award was established, even tried to open their eyes by telling them if they were planning a chefs of color list for the next year…To make matters worse, at least at the beginning the sponsor of that award was champagne Veuve Clicquot, and I told them that if The Clicquot widow were to see that, she would be delighted to win a prize for making good champagne, but not for being a woman making champagne! Hence, respect for females, nobody is going to give us anything for free; neither the goverment, nor the staff, the market of our customers forgive errors. We contend with the same strength, please respect us.
We have Elena Arzak among us, but there are not many women leading top level restaurants. How can this gap be bridged?
Clearly, training young women very well. Making them feel that if they want, they can. The crucial thing is to have this strength to be a leader and take charge of the team. In the Basque Country there is a lot of tradition with cook women, a lot! All these cook women have to feel that power, and feel themselves first-class citizens like them. There will be as many as they decide.
Do you like to enjoy going out for pintxos when you come to San Sebastian?
Of course! Whet the appetite with those cod and crab pintxos. I Was in San Sebastián when I discovered one thing that I have always practiced afterwards: we were at Ganbara, and they just brought a basket with mushrooms and placed it in a corner, from which it spread an outstanding smell all over the place. We asked them to cook us some mushrooms, and they cooked them rolled, quickly on both sides, and bareback with a raw egg yolk. To burst that egg yolk, which is the most perfect cream sauce that nature has given us, and mix it with the particular umami taste of mushroom, that was something to weep for very joy. I now do it: I prepare a bed of sautéed spinach and a raw egg yolk, covered with rolled mushrooms. What a fantastic dish, discovered in a pintxos tavern counter in San Sebastián! On top of that, it was something they came up with, not one of those well ordered and created pintxos, like that wonderful Gildas.
Do you remember any of our pintxos in a special way?
The cod. I’ve never found a cod pintxo in San Sebastian with a rotten taste, and that’s wonderful. I contend that those who say don’t like cod is not but a bad experience, because they have been served a corpse-flavored cop. Cod is the most delicious fish available, and also the most delicate! So, there has to be a great respect from professionals, to bring it to you with its saline as fresh fragrance, ensuring that, when salting it, they return on a salted mummy to life. In San Sebastian, I never had a corpse on my plate.
The Pintxos App collects the 99 best pintxos in San Sebastian, selected by the 11 Michelin-starred chefs in Gipuzkoa: What do you think of this initiative?
It would be suspicious if a chef didn’t enjoy eating. One of the questions we ask in staff selection processes is where he’s been for dinner lately. This approach helps us to measure their degree of enthusiasm about food, and that will be the degree of excitement the put for attend, in the living room, or in the kitchen. Therefore, do no trust in people involved in gastronomy not enjoying food.
Is the work done in the kitchens of the big restaurants very different from that done in the kitchens of these bars?
Not at all. Whether in a 3 starred restaurant or in a pintxos tavern, when you open the door, everything has to be cooked and introduced seamlessly, fresh and attractive. That respect for the product, for your pintxos offer, and for the customers that will taste them. Therefore, philosophy has to be the same.
The Basque Culinary Centre is located in San Sebastián. It’s a benchmark in gastronomic training, but you are self-taught: What does that bring, that doesn’t an academic training give?
A well trained professional coming out from the Basque Culinary Centre can write the best pages in the history of gastronomy. A well-trained professional who can pass through the Basque Culinary Centre, could write the best pages in the history of gastronomy. I always say that we have achieved a culinary leap, relying on respect for cooking, but best things are yet to come. Kitchens are now full of young men and women who have freely chosen this career and have an academic background. They have even traveled and staged outside our borders. So, the best is yet to come.
Pablo Loureiro Rodil is lucky. On June 3, at a ceremony held at the Kursaal Convention Center, he received the Euskadi Gastronomy Award to the Best Restaurateur of 2018. This is an award granted by the Basque Government, at the proposal of the Basque Academy of Gastronomy. It recognizes the good work of this chef in front of Casa Urola, a classic restaurant from the Historical Quarter of San Sebastian, who he and his wife Begoña Arenas have been running since 2010.
On the ground of this recognition, we took the opportunity to visit him in his kitchen and chat, take stock of his career in charge of Casa Urola, and learn more about his gastronomic philosophy and his pintxos. We put a great deal in the latter, since Casa Urola is one of the few businesses that have 3 pintxos selected in our List Pintxos – The Starred Chefs List – The 99 Best.
Pablo, what does the Euskadi Gastronomy Award meant for you?
A huge satisfaction, but also, if feasible, a feeling of greater responsability. These awards strengthen us, but also they are committing us to to come up to the mark.
What is your assessment of your seven years in charge of Casa Urola?
Very positive, and very intense. If, when I opened seven years ago, somebody would have told me all the things that were going to happen us, I wouldn’t have believed him. This 7 years, they all went very fast, as well as the 30 years I’ve been involved in the catering industry.
How has the pintxo world changed in these seven years?
Of course, when I arrived, there were people making pintxos long before me. But, in my opinion, I was an early adopter of restaurant concepts inside the bar counter, such as seasonal pintxos. If you change the restaurant menu four times a year, why not do the same with pintxos? For instance, now we also cook pintxos with vegetables, which was something I started doing a long time ago. Every time I see more bars with seasonal pintxos. Cooking them are more labor intensive, but this way you complement your offer, people like the idea, and furthermore I don’t get bored.
How has the Historical Quarter changed in these 7 years?
Obviously, there has been a tourist boom, some say that it is overcrowded … we have to be prepared to meet the demands of all those visitors, but at once I think we should extend the city limits, something that should be good even for bars in the Historical Quarter, that people can go to other districts in the city. And that we will be able to transmit our philosophy to the visitors.
The grill is one of the trademarks in Casa Urola’s gastronomic offer: What qualities make you bet so much for this technique?
Grilling is a hallmark of Casa Urola. It brings that rustic touch, a way of working that goes back to the roots. The grill never lies: it boosts the great and fresh product, while there is no way to improve a bad product. We grill meat and pieces of fish, but also use grilling for cooking more elaborated dishes, using it almost as a spice, giving them a delicate roast, without messing up the core of the product
Pintxo de alcachofa a la brasa con praliné de almendras y jamón
In a restaurant like Casa Urola, what role does the workforce play?
It is critical. In this Historical Quarter, visitors come in spurts. Suddenly, 15 people come, and you need enough labour force in the kitchen, because you cannot make a customer wait. Furthermore, we have pintxos that require a grade of processing: some sauces, some firing, some side dishes… In summer, we are 9 cooks inside the kitchen. It´s a lot for such a small place, but it is the only way we are able to maintain quality standards. Besides that we have the same rush hour both in the restaurant and in the bar counter. Adding to it that downstairs, in the bar, you can eat pintxos but also can request the menu, you can combine both of them. We have trainees of schools such as Luis Irizar´s, and they help us a lot, but also senior workers who give us the expertise we need.
And as far as I can see here, you also sign international workers!
Sure. Now we have two Japanese, and two Koreans. Partly because they likely will help us, along other chefs of San Sebastian, to open a pintxos corner in a Japanese hotel. It is usual for a lot of local chefs to have the desire to learn in some restaurants in Japan, just as a lot of Japanese chefs come here with the same aim. Nowadays, young cooks want to work in as much places as possible, to learn and gain experience. There are no longer kitchen careers, where someone starts from below and raises to head of kitchen. People have concerns, and we have to organize a team of people every year, just as soccer teams.
Casa Urola has 3 pintxos (Karmelita, Vieira a la plancha con ajoblanco, and Alcachofa con praline de almendras y jamón) on our list of the 99 Best Pintxos in Donostia / San Sebastián. What does that entail for you?
It´s awesome. We’ve been making pintxos for seven years, and there are bars that are authentic institutions. Being there side by side is a serious responsability. But it is also a chance to move up a gear and be in a state of flux, and always achieve the highest level: in summer days customers may have to wait a little longer, but the quality of pintxos can not go down.
Do you notice that there is more demand for these pintxos since Pintxos App was launched?
By all means. Specially with Alcachofa (Artichoke) and Vieira (Scallop). The scallop has doubled sales since Pintxos App came out. It has become very popular, as well as the Artichoke, although this one is a seasonal pintxo, from autumn to winter.
What about Karmelita? It’s a classic!
Karmelita, which is a cold pintxo, has also boomed. At the beginning, when we opened, I was more focused on the restaurant, even further considering the huge offering we had around us. But later I saw one opportunity to do something of my own, and that’s where seasonal pintxos came from, following the same path of the restaurant.
Pintxo de Karmelita
What is the secret of a good pintxo?
Good raw material, care, and immediacy. The immediacy is very important. In fact that’s the reason for what we do few cold pintxos. People here see how we work, and they like it: when we run out of Karmelitas, of Gildas…we replenish them, that’s it. Perhaps we have to cook cold pintxos again at 1 p.m. We prefer to do that rather than see pintxos making a long time on the bar counter. And for hot pintxos, we follow suit: they are made at the momento, the scallop is marked on the fly, as is the steak snack, the liver…it´s hard work, but people are not stupid and they appreciate it.
Is it easy to find good quality ingredients?
It is becoming more difficult everyday, because even though chefs have always talked about caring for producers, many of them are leaving, because their work is no longer profitable. We have to commit to them. I see producers as another piece of our team, partners. And if both partner, us and them, are not happy, this alliance will not properly work. We should acknowledge their input, because without it, the whole thing would fall apart.
Which percentage applies to tradition and innovation in Casa Urola proposal?
We have always been described as a traditional, updated kitchen. I do not deny the tradition, but I always think that there is an evolution: in techniques, in kitchen materials, in cooking temperature… Focusing on pintxos, I believe that we would be in a 50/50 between tradition and innovation. Cold pintxo itself is very traditional, while there is much more creativity in the hot ones. Most of them remain as casual interpretations of dishes of the restaurant menu, prepared with the same products.
Do you renew your pintxos offer?
Yes, as I said, on a seasonal basis. For instance, in summer we remove the spring salad, the asparagus cream, and introduce a tuna hamburger, which we make with leftovers of the tuna in the menu. We cook it with poached onion and Iberian pork´s fat, and it goes directly to the bar counter. There are also some sauteed green beans, with cod flakes and potato foam…They are pintxos inspired by dishes in the restaurant menu, which are quite well elaborated.
And are there pintxos in Casa Urola that you could not retire? Because of the demand
The Scallop, the Octopus, the Lobster spoon, to name a few, these could not be removed. And Karmelita, of course. There are few Lobster spoons: lobsters are cleaned for the restaurant, and we prepare the spoon crumbling their heads and legs. We always use the same product for both the bar and the restaurant. If one day we get product for fifteen spoons, there are no more. Once they’re over, you have to wait to the next day to taste it.
Pintxo de vieira a la plancha con ajoblanco
Does Pablo Loureiro like going out for pintxos?
Of course! It’s the way to socialize, to hang out with friends … You’re here all day working, and that walk from bar to bar, where you join different people in different places … That’s the magic of going out for pintxos. Pintxos and socialize go together, and that’s something not to be missed either.
What pintxo of the 99 Best Pintxos, not from your bar, would you like it to be from Casa Urola?
(Laughter) None! Because if they do it so well in that place, I would not get it better. There are traditional pintxos, those of the popular cookbok, which we all do, and moreover those which have a very personal, non transferable stamp.
What about pintxos plagiarism? They don’t have copyright, so if another bar copies you a recipe, little can be done!
A scrambled mushroom dish, some beans with foie…who owns the authorship? They are traditional recipes. Well, copying something without acknowledging that is some type of “tribute” or “in memory of”, that should not be done. Thus, each one prepares the pintxos in his own way, but if you copy something, you should mention it in some way.
Casa Urola
Fermín Calbetón 20
20003 Donostia – San Sebastián
Tel: (+34) 943 44 13 71
Email: info@casaurolajatetxea.es
Gros district, in San Sebastián, is undergoing a major transformation, and this has pushed the opening of many places with an innovative spirit, the whole neighborhood becoming, with regard to going out for pintxos, an inviting alternative to the traditional hegemony of the Historical Quarter, the Olympus of pintxos.
One of those places to visit is Xarma Cook & Culture, a step away from the beach of La Zurriola. Located in a large space previously occupied by a cannabis club, once you go inside you realize that you are in a space full of personality and good taste, something that is becoming less common overall, with much and so many restaurants that have been so similar.
But Xarma Cook & Culture does not come out of nowhere. Aizpea Oihaneder and Xabier Díez achieved to convert the old Xarma, that they managed for a decade in the Antiguo district, a benchmark for San Sebastian’s signature cuisine. But looking for broad their horizons, they closed that one, and opened a year and a half ago this new Xarma with the addition of “Cook & Culture” to its name. We spoke with Xabier about this leap of location, but above all, of concept and seating.
How do you rate this new stage?
Total madness. We came from a small business, making author kitchen or haute cuisine, and here we have jumped in the deep end: we have the bar upstairs, restaurants menu is more extensive, customers have trebled, and right now we are still defining our concept.
This new Xarma has cope with the times, offering a more complete experience: what does that mean?
What we intend to do in Xarma is help people to find their place, that many different kinds of people can find their way here. We like, for instance, to have people tasting a very elaborate menu, and other ones in the adjoining table dining a “txuleta”, the traditional chop. Ditto for our type of customers: we are open to couples, group of friends, business people…all in the same space, with a wide range of gastronomic proposals, and room for everyone.
You have an open kitchen, exposed to the prying eyes of all diners. Don’t you have nothing to hide?
There is nothing to hide, and it allows us to have direct contact with customers. When you are in a closed kitchen, you do not know what is happening in the dining room, you only know what the room team tells you. Here we see the faces of all diners, how they react, what kind of clientele we have … It is a more direct contact in all senses.
As you see customers, they also see you! I mean, you have to control yourself and make good figure all the time, yes?
Clearly. Indeed, since we are here, I have trouble sleeping, and get home with a lot pressure, because here you have to control yourself and put a happy face. It demands more, but we do not regret this commitment.
How important is the workforce in your project?
Absolute. We spent many hours together, with very challenging and stressful moments, which can only be supported by a good team, a good family and lots of closer ties between us. Now that Aizpea and me are 45 and 46 years old, it comes young people that brings new blood, a fresh approach, and help us to progress. If you don’t have a good work team, you fail.
Is Zurriola beach vicinity the ideal setting for a restaurant like Xarma?
Definitely. By location, by everything. In fact, our customers have told us for this year and a half. Some of them miss the old Xarma, but other really love the new offer. Therefore, we are looking for balance, because we cannot afford to do certain type of cooking for the huge volume of people that this venue allows. At this point, we are thinking about reducing the seating capacity, to be able to do the cooking that come from our souls. This space allow us to receive all kind of people, but they have to be relaxed, no etiquettes or bullshit like that.I do not want to impose an experience: the experience is given by your couple, your friends, the producer you speak with…Our food must only be the perfect excuse to live you own experience in the best way possible.
– You have 2 pintxos (Solomillo Euskaltxerri and Piquillo parrillero) on our list of the 99 best pintxos in Donostia / San Sebastián. What has this recognition meant for you?
There are people that come solely and exclusively to taste those pintxos, and by the way they try others, because we have a wide range for cooking pintxos. It goes from the chatka pintxos, that all bars have, but prepared our own way, to grilled piquillo peppers or a tataki pintxo, that are much more sofisticated works. We really have felt that push, people that want to know the restaurant and our pintxos.
Beyond these two pintxos on the list, what other pintxos would you highlight from your offer?
We have a changing offer. When we think something for a weekend, we don’t need to think twice, we do it and put in on the counter. Tradition and vanguard live there together, with no frills attached. Let things taste as they have to. For instance, chatka. Everybody says: fucking surimi chatka… we have given importance to this product, we cook it with good shrimps, put a good crafish oil emulsion…ultimately, we have given the prominence it deserves, and today is the pintxo most often sold.
Pintxo de solomillo Euskaltxerri
What is the secret of a good pintxo?
It must be tasty, easy to eat, if possible one or two bites must be enough to do it, better with no cutlery. The secret of a good pintxo is to take care of the food.
And how important is the quality of that product?
Quality of the ingredients is always important, and simplicity of a pintxo does not always come together with the number of ingredients it carries. You can find pintxos with few ingredients but much more cooking work that other with more ingredients.
Is it hard to find a good product?
No. Moreover, it is becoming easier for the producer to come to your home. You just have to be willing to work it, but that means that, if you want a good product, it has a price, and your margin will be lower. But good product exists, and is available to everyone. Same as the bad one.
How often do you renew your pintxos offer?
It depends a lot on the season: there are seasons that are less generous than others. And it also depends on the inspiration that we have that moment. If I have time and mind something, I do it and we put it on the counter. Sometimes it works, but if not, I eat it myself (laughs).
Since you are in Gros District, is there some pintxo that has already become an essential?
The Piquillo parrillero, practically from the beginning, as well as the Iberian Sirloin Tataki, and now the Puturru de Foie. And Bestsellers are chatka, and longfinned tuna with chilli peppers small roll.
Pintxo de piquillo parrillero
What percentage would you give to tradition and innovation in Xarma’s proposal?
It could be 60/40, although more than talking about innovation, we speak of sophistication. But the objective, rather than seeking that balance, is to come closer to the type of cook we made in the old Xarma, the signature cooking, inspired by tradition.That is what we want to achieve, but we have to find ourselves, adapt the venue to our kitchen, and not our kitchen to the venue.
This year your partner Aizpea Oihaneder was in charge of cutting the new Idiazabal cheese in the “Artzai eguna”, the sheperd´s day held annually in Ordizia. What did this mean for Xarma?
It was a very important recognition for us, and even more so for Aizpea, who has been attending the “Artzai eguna” for many years. The Idiazabal has always been present in our menu, and it is a product with which we work a lot.
Do you like going out for pintxos?
I love it. In fact, I like it more than sit down at a restaurant. I like walk from bar to bar eating pintxos, as also sit down in a bar terrace. I find it much more dynamic, more varied, more casual, and I enjoy it more.
What pintxo of the 99 best list of some other bar you would like to create?
The lobster spoon from Casa Urola, for example, blows my mind. From Bodega Donostiarra, I remember from my childhood the Completo, a sandwich of Spanish white tuna in oil with peppers. I also would eat any of bar Zazpi. In Bar Bergara, I still ask for the Chopito, another one I remember from my childhood, and enjoy the tomato and Tuna tartar. I would walk to each bar to taste one, and also the rest!
