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What is it like to be a chef in a gastronomic restaurant?
Artur Martínez, chef at Aürt Barcelona. He is much more than a cook. He thinks, reflects, defends and disseminates his own and authentic discourse. In this article, we will learn about his career first-hand, understanding the present and the future of Artur Martínez through his gastronomic experiences. You will understand what it means and entails to be a chef in a Michelin Star gastronomic restaurant.
- Where does Artur Martínez come from?
- The birth of Capritx, his first gastronomic restaurant
- From Terrasa to Barcelona with Aürt
“OuOur gastronomy is the result of its own personality. Every cook has his personality, but then this is forged with all the experiences and adventures that he has lived, and this adds up to the fact that in my case I am a person who believes I have values to be faithful to. What we try is to defend our way of understanding gastronomy and be faithful to it, and above all to evolve within our own discourse." - Artur Martínez
Where does Artur Martínez come from?
Artur's origin comes from Terrassa, where he grew up, always close to the family business that his grandparents founded in 1952. It was a very small, very simple bar, where his grandmother made simple and classic tapas and his grandfather served wine.
This bar was transformed in the late 70s by his parents, who began to offer take away food. From that small kitchen, his culinary thinking was forged, which Artur considers to be the foundation for his entire adventure with the gastronomic restaurant that he created later and that lasted 15 years.
The gastronomic project Aürt de Barcelona is inspired by the experiences and sensations that he had since childhood in that bar, being reflected in the interaction with the diner and the way in which he understands cuisine and gastronomy.
Artur says that until he was 16 years old, he had never ever thought of being a cook, he wanted to be a musician. He created a band in which he played guitar, but this distracted him from his studies. When he failed in his studies, his father gave him an ultimatum and told him that he either worked in the family bar, or studied cooking, he opted to study and that was how he started in the world of cooking..
"As soon as I started I realized that this was my life, it was my future, it was love at first sight. I found a way to understand this. It seems very romantic, very utopian ... Gastronomy is a way of understanding life, I found soulmates, people who were also a bit lost in the world. I found an activity, some studies, a profession that was very transversal, it was a bit of everything and this seduced me." - Artur Martínez
Being a very passionate and obsessive person with what he likes best, Artur studied very exhaustively. He read many books and sought to have many experiences that would allow him to be in contact with the kitchen.
He did internships in some important places, with Jean Luc Figueras, with El Talaia, with Ferran Adrià and his team and at the Pastisseria Murià de Terrassa. After this, he entered the Young Chefs Championship of Catalonia and won. Then he had two jobs as head chef, one at the Grec festival in Barcelona and then at the Escola d'Alta Hostaleria i Turisme del Maresme. He learned that being a manager and head of a kitchen was not as easy as it had seemed. Finally, before opening his first restaurant, he worked at Grupo Vips in Madrid as executive chef at the age of 23.
The birth of Capritx, his first gastronomic restaurant
After the professional experiences he had, Artur decided to transform the family bar into a gastronomic restaurant, which he called Capritx in 2002. A restaurant with a single tasting menu with different dishes and wines that were not Riojas or Riberas. As it was a totally different concept from what was used to be offered in Terrasa, it had a tough start, but then succeeded thanks to Artur's faithfulness to his principles.
To try to solve the situation of receiving few diners, the idea was born of betting on the two factors that have marked the trajectory of Artur's restaurants:
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On the one hand, understand that it should have its own gastronomic personality, creating an innovative discourse. Then he began to write and make a decalogue and an idea of how the kitchen should be and follow it.
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The other very important factor was the territory. Bet on discovering and working on something that practically did not exist, a local gastronomic tradition. It was not so easy because they did not have many producers or a deeply rooted tradition. He had to do a very intense job to recover lost gastronomic heritage, from a region that is now associated with the industrial sector, but which until the 1950s was a significant viticultural, agricultural and livestock nucleus.
At Capritx he began to make his own wine, olive oil, sausages, and cheeses. This made the difference in the connection with the product. Artur states that without the excellence of the product it is impossible to aspire to an excellent kitchen, and this was very clear to him. Product and personality had to go hand in hand.
During the 15 years that Capritx lasted, until it decided to move to Barcelona, the restaurant had a Michelin Star for 7 years. The uniqueness of the project lies in achieving and maintaining a Michelin Star for seven years without a dishwasher, without grill, without a grill, without a deep fryer and without a lot of machinery other than a three-burner module.
At first, he was concerned because unlike other restaurants, he did not have all a very important technical productive capacity. Over time, he admits that he realized that this is precisely what made them different, that was their added value. When he understood this, he began to deepen it and thus achieved his true essence.
From Terrassa to Barcelona with Aürt
In 2017, he came to the conclusion that Capritx should close, as he was forced to go to Barcelona to compete with the big boys. I had spent 15 years in a very small kitchen with a physical separation between the diner and the cooks. What he wanted was to break this barrier so that he could communicate everything he did more effectively. He wanted to teach, interact, talk, and have people ask him questions. This was only possible by cooking in front of the customer, and that is why the concept of Aürt was born.
He developed two tables, a large one for eight people and a smaller one for 6 or 7, with the aim that all the diners ate at the chef's table. From start to finish, everything unfolds in view of the customer and the interaction is impressive.
"The word Aürt symbolizes something that we defend through our kitchen, which is the exoticism of proximity. It means surprising the customer with what surrounds him and that he does not know, or that he knows, but does not know its possibilities. The name is a Catalan word that means a sudden shock, and we came to Barcelona to give a strong blow. " - Artur Martínez
