In the early nineties, coinciding with the Universal Exhibition, a Basque-Madrid priest came to Seville who intended to open in the city The Halberdier Taverna successful restaurant near the Royal Palace of Madrid that in a few years had garnered the best reviews from the public and the press. He was taking the first steps with the Hospitality School, but his intention was to establish himself in the city with his own premises, so he was looking for a centrally located house, preferably an old mansion, a Sevillian house with its patio of lights and all the vestiges of the incomparable buildings of this land.
It was Don Luis de Lezama Barañano, from Amurrio, Alava, who had been a parish priest in different towns in the capital of Spain, especially in Chinchón, after having been in Entrevías, next to the Pozo del Tío Raimundo, one of the least coveted destinations by the curia of that diocese. Shortly after, Don Vicente Enrique Tarancón would sign him as personal secretary in the Archbishopric. From that time in Chinchón came his bullfighting hobby which led him to promote quite a few boys, which is why he was known as the “suitcase priest.”
After some research and visiting many buildings, Don Luis fell in love with a house on Zaragoza Street that had been the residence of the illustrious writer and academic Don Juan Antonio Cavestany. And there would begin Seville adventure of the Tavernwhose already international group, the Lezama Group, today has five hundred employeesten restaurants – one of them in Washington – and three hospitality schools that have trained hundreds of restaurant service professionals and who currently occupy preferred positions in as many businesses in the art of food delivery.
A very special mention cannot be overlooked to the Seville Hospitality School which, from its beginnings in the Plaza de Molviedro to the present day in the Navigation Pavilion in La Cartuja, has trained several thousand professionals who have revitalized a profession that had been left to unqualified people and who today occupy the best positions in the sector. Some have run successful businesses and even appear on Michelin star lists.
brotherly friendship
For almost half a century I have been united by a brotherly friendship with Luis de Lezama. He is the priest of my family. We have traveled together and we have been to all of their establishments, including the one in Washington, where we coincided one day with the couple. Clinton and with Michelle Obama. I made him write on Sundays at ABC. I have been his altar boy at mass and we have spent unforgettable evenings in their Amurrio farmhouse where you wake up to the shearing of the cows from the nearby meadow. We have been without question on the boulevard of San Sebastián while we feared that the ETA sympathizers who demonstrated in the brave years would recognize us. Anyway, a couple of months ago I had the honor of delivering his laudatio, which could only be the synthesis of the admiration and friendship that unites us, at the award ceremony for the gastronomy award of the Chamber of Commerce of Seville.
But we cannot forget Father Lezama’s other activities. Consecrated to the priesthood since 1962 and graduated in Journalism from the Complutense University, he has been a special envoy in numerous conflict points on the planet such as the Golan Heights, and in Israeli territory he interviewed Golda Meir. But what he never forgot as an informant is his trip to Montevideo in 1972 where he would interview the survivors of the Uruguayan rugby team plane crash. For his radio program on Cope he received the Ondas Award granted by Cadena Ser.
I would need at least half a newspaper if I tried to give a complete account of the resume of such a distinguished priest who has had time throughout his life to do a thousand things without leaving any of them half done. This is how Cardinal Rouco Varela understood it when he was commissioned to build a parish in the new neighborhood of Las Tablas in Madrid, and once he was set to work, he took time and resources to build a school next to him, which he named Saint Mary the Whitea dedication that remembers its Patroness of Álava and the church of the Seville Jewish quarter. There, until his retirement, he carried out, with dedication and commitment, an admirable pastoral work that included children’s Sunday Mass with the distribution of balloons and lollipops. He gave one of these candies to Pope Francis and a few years later the Holy Father would honor him with a personal and private audience at his residence in Santa Marta in the Vatican.
Definitively recovered for the field of Culture, the Lezama Group has taken gastronomy to its highest levels with dishes whose only common denominator is excellence truffled by the old arts of Spanish cuisine and seasoned by the dedication of an entire team of professionals. that vibrates with its craft and makes true that of a job well done. The soul of all this has been Don Luis de Lezama for half a century, whom today we say goodbye with respect and emotion. El Páter, as we familiarly called him, has also been president of eurohodipthe association that brings together all hospitality schools in the European Union; He has fed the members of the Ibero-American Summit at the Royal Palace, and has traveled halfway around the world carrying the essences of Spanish cuisine as his flag.
Seville, which has named a roundabout in La Cartuja with his name, continues to be indebted to Father Lezama who, thanks to the founding of his Hospitality School in this city, is projecting the good work of his kitchens throughout Spain with hundreds of young people. professionals trained on the banks of the Guadalquivir. That is why, gathering the feelings of so many friends, I allow myself to suggest that Don Luis de Lezama Barañano be named adopted son of Seville in recognition of the great services provided to the Seville hospitality industry.
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