Chef Martin Berasategui on the joy of cooking and his seven Michelin stars
The Spanish chef recently completed a guest stint at Vasco, in Central - where a protégé, Paolo Casagrande, is in charge
"I was last here five years ago and I tried a range of restaurants, local and Western. I can tell Hong Kong is moving towards stratospheric success in terms of gastronomy. Paolo is one of my best protégés and like a brother to me. He cooks like an angel and with a smile. I am excited about Asia because my 'little brothers' [protégés] here are expanding on the knowledge I have shared with them. A few years ago I used to tell journalists that I have apprentices who will be at the top of their game in a few years and the media laughed at me. But my brothers have made my prediction come true."
"My family owned a [tavern] 50 metres from the fresh market and 50 metres from the flat where the staff slept. After school I would go straight to the restaurant to help out, tending the charcoal fire. Our customers were mainly suppliers, like fishermen, mushroom pickers, butchers, peasants harvesting vegetables. My father was good with people and we would have all walks of life in the eatery. We always cooked with the wisdom of nature - whether the tastes are subtle or elegant depends on the chef.
"Before I became a chef, my family taught me the beauty of life, and all the people who came into the restaurant talked to me and gave me 'the university of life'. When you have a lot of university of life, then you see life as something fresh and light as opposed to heavy. When you have these values, you have no fear, are not lazy or embarrassed - and chefs cannot have these three qualities."
"A long time ago I figured out there are ways of communicating - if doctors can [fly to] do operations 15,000km away, I can open restaurants in different locations. I strongly believe in teamwork and training so that my little brothers can do their own things. They need to be non-conformists like myself, always curious to go further, to question how things can be done better than the day before, because life needs to be lived in the richest way. Chefs need to be warm, humble and entrepreneurial."
"Michelin is the Rolls Royce of guides because the reviews are anonymous. Having a Michelin star is like touching the ceiling of my kitchen with your fingertips. The guide is very professional and both earning and keeping the stars are due to many years of hard work and discipline."
"I am a lover of life and a transporter of joy. I cook whatever is available - maybe a fish dish I ate when I was growing up or, after my trip here, I will cook something Asian-oriented. Some of my favourites are turbot from the north Atlantic, percebes [goose barnacles], sea urchin with fennel vinaigrette, red shrimps with lentils."
"Since I was a child I wanted to be a chef. When I was 15, I was sat at a wooden table with my maternal aunt and mother sitting in front of me and they asked if I wanted to work in the kitchen from 8am to 1am, every day. I said yes. On my one day off, my father's friend would take me across the border to France to learn how to make pastry, ice cream, cured meats - the culinary arts. I don't really sleep - we'll sleep when we enter the House of Still! When I was 21, I sat my aunt and mother at the same wooden table and told them, 'You have worked like a lioness and a tigress all your lives and now I can run this restaurant.' Basque women are very tough - but they retired and, four years later, I got my first Michelin star, the first given to a . It's a humble eatery, so I never expected that."
Bernice Chan
