fine dining
‘It’s becoming more normal these days for chefs to learn front of house skills. Take “Noma” in Copenhagen, the chefs are also the waiters’
The real deal One of the latest tapas bars in Dublin is the newly re- launched Ice Bar in the Four Seasons Hotel in Ballsbridge.What makes the Four Seasons offering dif- ferent from many others is that there’s a Spanish chef looking after the tapas. And not just any old Spanish chef, but one who cut his teeth working with the world- famous ‘El Bulli’ team. His name is Ramon Torres. A few months ago I got a sneak preview of Torres’
tapas on a visit to the Four Seasons and I came away much impressed. A couple of them were truly extraor- dinary, especially the coconut curry. That’s a combina- tion of flavours that I’d never come across before and it was an astonishing taste explosion. But then again that’s exactly the sort of combination that made El Bulli world renowned. Torres grew up in northern Spain near the Pyrenees
in Huesca, which is in the province of Aragon. His father was a chef, so his earliest memories are of kitchens. “So you followed in the father’s footsteps?” I ask. “It wasn't quite like that,” he tells me, “I wasn’t much of a student and my academic career was going nowhere, so I just fell into the idea of being a chef.” Torres left school and attended a catering college in Les, near Huesca, where he saw cooking as a job, not as a career. “I had no pas- sion for it then,” he says. It was a move to Barcelona two years later that changed his mind.
El Bulli connection The Barcelona catering college had a connection with El Bulli, which back in 1997 didn’t have the worldwide celebrity that it now has. “Chefs from El Bulli would demonstrate their methods to us students, and this new way of cooking started to really excite me. That was when I developed the passion.” After graduation his first job was an unpaid one, but
it was in one of northern Spain’s great restaurants. Martín Berasategui’s eponymous restaurant in San Sebastian has three Michelin stars, so it was quite a coup for a first job, even an unpaid one. After this it was back to Barcelona, this time to El Bulli Taller, the workshop of El Bulli in Barcelona.
Torres worked for nearly two years there before decid- ing that he needed English to further his career. So, being one of the new breed of graduates from the cater- ing college where both front of house and kitchen skills were taught, he went to London to work as a waiter. Says Torres: “It’s becoming more normal these days for chefs to learn front of house skills. Take ‘Noma’ in Copenhagen, the chefs are also the waiters. It’s a new way of seeing how restaurants operate.” A brief visit to Ireland followed in 2004. “Ireland was
in the middle of a boom then,” he recalls. “I remember,” I interject gloomily. “I lasted two years. I did a lot of odd jobs but then I went back to Barcelona to do a master’s degree.” “Was it the rain that drove you away?” I ask. “No, not
at all. Being from the Pyrenees I’m used to rain. No, I just wanted to perfect my skills. It was a great college; we were taught by some of the best chefs in Catalunya.”
Return to Ireland With his master’s degree under his belt, Torres went back to Huesca to work as a head chef, but the urge to travel hadn’t left him. It’s something I hear a lot when interviewing chefs – because they can take their trade with them, travelling is always an option. So, in November last year, it was back to Ireland. “I had no plan, I did a few odd jobs. I even made burgers for a while, but they fired me.” He laughs loudly: “Obviously I’m no good at flipping burgers.” It was a visit to HR in the Four Seasons on spec that
landed Torres the Ice Bar gig. As luck would have it, the hotel was planning to put tapas into the Ice Bar, and a Spanish chef with impeccable credentials came knock- ing on the door. The synchronicity of that coincidence means you can now get really good tapas in the Ice Bar, priced from €2 to €4. It’s been running for a couple of months now, so I ask
Torres what are the big sellers. “The Spanish omelette is probably the biggest seller, but the surprise is that the sweet tapas are selling very well, especially the warm chocolate mousse and the coconut curry.” Ah yes, the coconut curry. It was my favourite too.
64 Irish Director Summer 2011
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