new technologies and combining ingredients that were never combined before, became known as the New Basque Cuisine.
Juan Mari began serving this innovated Basque cuisine at his restaurant. He cooked creative dishes that stayed faithful to the Basque traditions but went one step further, also making them avant-garde. By cooking exquisite Basque avant-garde dishes and spreading the New Basque Cuisine, through the Round Table of Gastronomy II Basque food became known worldwide. Therefore, Arzak was rewarded his third Michelin star in 1989.
His ideas were so influential that he encouraged
Ferran Adrià to follow his own ideas and separate himself from the mainstream Spanish food. Adrià said of Arzak: “He’s the most important figure in Spanish cooking. He is a leader.”
By 1974, Juan Mari and his wife Maite had two daughters, Elena and Marta, who both grew up in the restaurants’ kitchen. Elena, unlike her father, knew from the start that she wanted to become a chef. After school she went to Lucerne to study Hotel and Restaurant Management, and after that she worked in many renowned restaurants all over Europe.
After returning to her family’s restaurant, Arzak, she started cooking there as joint chef with her father and together they develop the Basque cuisine even further. Together, they have established a laboratory in the restaurant to create new dishes and mix ingredients to take the Arzak cuisine a step further.
Juan Mari Arzak has made his grandparents’ restaurant famous and earned it three Michelin stars. His curiosity made him go to France to learn contemporary cooking techniques. When he came back, he experimented with his regional traditional cuisine and made it avant-garde. This courage and willingness to experiment made him famous and respected by fellow chefs all over the world and gave them the same courage to follow their instincts.
By Vera Kleinken
