Santiago, in the past you’ve described yourself as a nomadic chef. Do you still feel that way now that you’ve made your base in London?
Even though I do live here in London and I have two restaurants here, KOL and Fonda, I still travel quite a lot. Plus a big part of my career, the first 13 or 14 years, I was traveling and living all around the world. These days, I still find inspiration from travel! I realized you can’t just get enough inspiration from being in one place and cooking at your own restaurant, there’s only so much that you can create. You can’t just come to work and expect to come up with something new all the time for years and years, you know? I realized a couple years ago that I need to learn more things, but when you’re a chef and a restaurant owner, you have limited time. So for the last few years, I’ve been going to different countries specifically to learn about their cuisine.
Where was the last place you visited?
I've been going to Japan the past couple years and it's been incredible. I learned so much, even though I don't really do any Japanese food at my restaurants, I love the Japanese approach to cooking, but also Japanese design and fashion and art. I’ve been spending time with producers and farmers and going to markets, eating street food, going to some restaurants to learn some techniques. I learned about vegan Japanese food. I cooked for the monks at a monastery. I love to be a student in this way. The idea is to really understand the culture... Flavor is the representation of culture. We say that we are what we eat, but then also, we eat what we are! When you go to a different country and you eat something, the flavors are representation of the culture. And the best way to understand those flavors is not just going there and eating sushi, it’s about the people, the geography, the history, religion. It’s about really understanding.
“Quality is not luxury, it’s something you made with your hands and perfected through your craft.”
This was also your approach when you first started cooking, right? You travelled to 27 different countries to cook and learn techniques?
Well, the thing is that although I was learning, I was also chasing innovation, I was trying to chase the next big thing in food, the next new thing. When I was 18, I thought that Paris was the new thing in food, so I went to Paris and and they told me, “No, no, the new thing is Spanish cuisine!” I moved to Spain straight away. A couple of years later, it was like, actually, no, the new thing is Nordic cuisine. I moved there and one day my colleague told me, “The new thing is Latin American food!” (Laughs) I realized in that moment that you can't chase innovation, you can’t chase the next big thing. The only way to reach innovation is to do it yourself, to find your own path. I realized I had to rely on my own strengths, my skills as a Mexican chef, to make Mexican food outside of Mexico with local ingredients. I started doing that in events and pop ups all around the world, in Russia, Paris, Italy, Portugal…
Did you then already start to embark on the journey to open your first restaurant, KOL?
No, it was slower than that. It’s interesting because when I was younger, when I first started working, I was creative but when I tried to create a dish, I was completely blocked. I could only replicate, copy and paste what I learned, but I wasn’t making anything new. It was frustrating because I knew that my ideas were not good enough, I couldn’t make what I wanted to make. I thought I would have to just always work for other people and be fine with that. But then I had this dream one night where I was eating something like an apple, I could feel the juice and the crisp skin and all of this stuff very vividly. Like I was dreaming flavors, it was so immersive. I woke up and I had so many ideas, ideas were bombarding me! I realized I wanted to create, but I still needed more knowledge — so I ended up working at Noma in Copenhagen to gain more technique and skill.
I can imagine working with René Redzepi was a really formative technical and creative experience.
Absolutely, and that time gave me the opportunity to work as a project manager for a Noma event in Mexico. I spent a lot of time traveling with René, and I learned a lot about his point of view of quality. I went further and deeper into the craft of things, I learned a lot of new skills and techniques, I worked with an amazing team. I learned that quality is not luxury, it’s something you made with your hands and perfected through your craft. It doesn’t need to be complicated; it can be simple. I kept that as a mantra. That’s when I started focusing on opening my restaurant here in London.
I see that very much in your food — for example, the jalapeño, rhubarb, and coconut paleta topped with wood ants, which gives it the appearance of a watermelon. It’s simple but so effective.
I love these kinds of iconic shapes, as you said, it’s quite simple, you could draw that without lifting your pen from the paper. I don’t like to have so many elements and so many things put together on the plate. The colors as well, Mexican food is very colorful, whereas I find English food can be a bit sad looking. So I love the idea of taking the ingredients here and making them super vibrant. Then the small details, like the ants are the finishing touch.
It’s a very art-minded approach, no?
There is a lot of ways that art and food overlaps, but food is a craft as well. If you are just going to go make a steak with fries, that's not artistic, you know? That’s just a steak with fries. But if you have a story and narrative and a style and a way to put things flavors together that is unique to you, then it becomes more artistic. It’s like a painting and the way you add flavors and textures, sweetness, acidity, umami, freshness, layering all together, the more complete the painting becomes. Then there’s plating, how you call the dish, the design of it....
Does the artistic experience also extend to the way the dish is presented to the guests, the experience of being in the restaurant?
Oh, 100 percent. Fine dining is a performance. A big part of the experience is the performance of the journey: you go to the place and you sit down, and then someone comes and gives you the menu and explains the wine list, you know, these little elements of hospitality that are all about you having a pleasant time. It’s an activity, it’s an experience, you don't have to go to a fine dining restaurant, you could eat at home or have a sandwich; you go to a fine dining restaurant to have that experience. You go there because it's an activity to connect with people, you're sharing a moment with people, with your friends, with your family, with your partner. So we work around that for you to have a good time. I think that is one of the most beautiful things about fine dining that not a lot of people understand, some people think that it’s just fancy food, but it’s about more than that. It’s a very genuine thing.
You’ve previously said that the best chefs are those who live, breathe, and dream food. Is that how you feel about cooking?
I live and breathe food, for sure, ever since I started working in the kitchen. Food is the only thing that exists in my life for the last 20 years. I think there is a lot of beauty in finding this special thing that you’re passionate about. Because to create your own food and be creative, and be successful doing it… There’s only a small chance that you will make it. It’s like, imagine you are working as a film director, the chances that you can make your own movie that is your passion project, and also wins an Oscar, and also makes money, that would be really hard. So I think you really need that passion to work in this industry, you need to love it no matter what. That’s what I’ve realized: If someone would give me all the money in the world, but the only thing they say is that you can’t do what you're doing, my answer would be no, you know? It’s a lot of work, but if you love it, it’s worth it.