The hotelier Javier Rivero Yarza, the gastrophysicist Eneko Axpe, the chocolatier Pol Contreras and the chef Zineb Hattab, included in the 50 Next list of disruptive talents in the sector
In addition to making the list of the best restaurants in the world, the 50Best organization has set out to identify the most promising young people in world gastronomy every year. In the 50Next list presented this Friday in Bilbao there are a few chefs, but also scientists, producers, entrepreneurs and activists. Among them, four Spanish professionals: the Gipuzkoan hotelier Javier Rivero Yarza, the Biscayan scientist Eneko Axpe, the Lleida chocolatier Pol Contreras and the Spanish-Moroccan chef based in Switzerland Zineb Hattab.
The list, which unlike its older sisters is not structured as a ranking but around different categories, aims to recognize those who are promoting positive changes in different areas of the sector and has been drawn up with the advice of the Basque Culinary Center. This is the second time that it has been published, but the first time that it has an in-person gala, held at the Euskalduna Palace in Bilbao thanks to the good disposition of the Basque institutions, which intend to position the Basque Country as a granary of gastronomic talents at an international level.
The list of this second edition includes professionals between 22 and 37 years old who work within the broad spectrum of the food and beverage sector, from producers and educators to technology creators and activists. That diversity is also seen in the four Spanish names on the list. Javier Rivero Yarza, from Gipuzkoa, who, together with Gorka Rico, is responsible for Ama Taberna in Tolosa, has been recognized for the leading role he gives to local producers, with whom he has established a solid relationship of trust. “We never negotiate the price and if something is not available, we cook with what they have,” he explains. His culinary vocation was awakened at the age of 19, when his mother passed away and he missed the flavors he brought home. He dropped out of engineering to study cooking and ended up opening a restaurant called Ama in honor of her.
In the same category of ‘pioneers of hospitality’ that recognizes Rivero, the name of the Hispano-Moroccan Zineb Hattab, who runs a vegetable cuisine restaurant in Zurich, also appears. In 2014 she took a radical turn in her life, she left a job as a software developer and, without having any experience in the kitchen, she put herself under the orders of Josean Alija in the Bilbao restaurant Nerua. The next decade was spent rolling through some of the best restaurants in the world, such as Osteria Francescana or El Celler de Can Roca, to finally nest in Zurich, where at the beginning of the pandemic he opened the Kle restaurant and the Dar bar, both based exclusively on vegetable products. In addition to pursuing a sustainable project on an ecological level, he joins the chorus of voices that defend the need to create a sustainable work environment on a human level: «We cannot help change the world with our food if we ourselves are not happy and healthy in our daily life”.
Eneko Axpe, from Baracaldé, works on the development of alternatives to animal protein. He was researching biomaterials for Nasa when a chance discovery made him change course and direct his efforts to mitigate the 37% of greenhouse gases produced by the food industry. In 2018 he presented an innovative vegetable bacon and last year a prototype that replicates the texture and flavor of salmon. Since then he collaborates with the team of the three Biscayan stars Azurmendi and is co-founder of the company Oraibi, aimed at finding other options compared to the most polluting foods. “Creating tasty food from waste is a very effective strategy to fight climate change,” he says.
The creative who wants to change the rules of chocolate
Pol Contreras has been recognized for applying that same innovative spirit to a sector as powerful -and sometimes as distorted- in the food industry as chocolate. This chef and pastry chef by training, who works as head of creativity at the Echaurren restaurant in Ezcaray (La Rioja) and was a Revelation Pastry Chef at Madrid Fusión 2019, became interested in cocoa while developing ideas for an offal dessert. From then on, he undertook a series of trips through some of the main producing countries in the world -Vietnam, Venezuela, Madagascar or Papua- in which he has established contacts with small growers to bring the ‘bean to bar’ philosophy (from the bean to the tablet) one step further until you reach the plate. His concern leads him to establish synergies with other disciplines, such as the collaboration with the textile designer Arantza Vilas to extract dyes from cocoa waste, or beers and wines flavored with cocoa from India or Papua. He is not surprised that Ferran Adrià signed him up for his research team at El Bulli Foundation.
Among the international winners are very diverse profiles, from the Ukrainian confectioner Dinara Kasko, who prints her sweet creations with a 3D printer, to Jessica Naomi Fong, who is planting Hong Kong with vertical gardens, who was René Redzepi’s right-hand man in his creativity department, Mette Brink Søberg or the London-based Mexican chef Santiago Lastra, who shone at the last edition of Madrid Fusión. Thus, up to fifty educators, scientists, entrepreneurs or social agitators who have understood that gastronomy is not only beautiful cooking, but a tool that can change the world.
The awards ceremony was preceded by a day of reflection on that role with such authoritative voices as Joan Roca, Dominique Crenn or Mauro Colagreco, in addition to some of the winners in the previous edition, such as Maitane Alonso, David Zilber or Jenny Dorsey . It spoke of a more plant-based diet, the need to rethink food waste, social justice in the production chain and other recipes necessary to guarantee the future.
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