For years, the Roca brothers have been carrying out an initiative to promote talent within the stagiers of Celler Can Roca, which this year, has been unveiled for the first time in Madrid Fusión.
2.The winning dish: Tom's Land
For several years now, the Roca brothers have been running a competition between the stagiers del Celler De Can Roca, chefs who are doing their internships there to complete their training. The prize? Including the winning dish on the Celler's menu, and a dinner at the three Michelin star restaurant.
"It's a way of making the most of internal talent, of using the creativity of the boys and girls who come from all over the world", explains Roca during his speech at Madrid Fusión.
During the competition, participants can use any of the foods available in the restaurant or even bring in products from outside the restaurant, but Tom decided to make a dish only with products from his own batch, the snacks.
On the same day Tom received the news, the students of the eighth graduating class of the Haute Chef Diploma and part of the staff were visiting the Celler, so we took the opportunity to sit down and interview Tom on the restaurant's terrace and let him tell us first-hand about the process of developing his dish and what it's like to do the stage at one of the world's best restaurants
The Roca brothers were impressed by Tom's creativity, who managed to build a story around the dish, recreating the Mas Marroch farmland, from which the Celler is nourished, to show how the different seasons pass through it.
"He made the dish only with products recovered from his partee, things we were throwing away," says Roca. "He even mounted it on a plate that we were going to throw away, because it was broken. He turned it over and kept on serving".
The dish is divided into several layers. The base is composed of pear and tupinambo, two ingredients that were part of the original batch. On top, we find beans and buckwheat recovered from old varieties. One level up, green leaves that were not used, such as skins or husks, simulating autumn. On top, smoked pecan nuts, with roasted milk powder. To say goodbye to autumn, a pear slush that simulates rain to give way to the last layer, freeze-dried spinach, which simulates the first shoots of spring.
"The story seemed so fantastic to me that I said, we have to tell it," says Roca. "But not so much for the originality of the dish, but for the intangibles linked to this idea: making the most of the land and its life cycle. So simple and yet so powerful at the same time".
You can follow Tom's adventures and more on his Instagram profile @tomfoodventure