Strolling around Barcelona means being amazed by its architecture, its people,
The diversity around the place,
Add its neighborhoods full of charms.
Precisely, one of its neighborhoods  is what brought us here.
Those who walk around Plaza España, don´t suspect that a revolution is being carried out in a few blocks.
This revolution begins in 2011, when Albert and Ferran Adriá joined together with Iglesias brothers
creating a new concept in gastronomy,
Six different concepts in the same place, El Barri.
Chefs TV continues its tour through the small Mexican atmosphere that Albert Adriá and Paco Mendez created in El Barri.
I didn´t have to walk far this time, since Niño Viejo and Hoja Santa live together at the same place.
Paco, who is also the Head Chef at Hoja Santa, accompanied us in this visit.
We entered a place that is inspired in residences,
What´s it about? The thing is that I wanted to open a place where you come to eat as if you were at your grandma´s house
And what do you find there?
Well, this leads you to the kitchen, and this is very common in Mexico
The kitchen is attached.
Exactly.
I love when the client says I´m here but I´d like to go over there.
Like me! I´d like that too.
So what´s going on?
When the people arrive at Hoja Santa, right?,  all the team come to welcome them.
To enter Hoja Santa means to get involved in a world of flavours and intense smells.
As regard design, it is all the opposite to a theme restaurant.
With shapes of hats, fajitas and rancheras. It is an exponential of what Albert Adrià calls high  local food cuisine.
Where the traditional Mexican cuisine is taken, its ingredients and ancient techniques, reinterpreted with a modern vision.
It is a place we where you have two testing menus. One that contains between 23 and 25 dishes, and another that has between 27 and 30.
The thing is that we have a menu that is a seasonal menu, and another which is the fixed menu.
Let´s say that is all the fixed dishes over the year.
Exactly, and another that is changing according with the season.
We change the menu every 4 months.
It includes things from the fixed menu, and over the last 4 years since we opened, we got a recipe book from almost 250 dishes.
So this means we never stop creating new dishes.
Hoja Santa and  Niño Viejo is a brother and sister concept. Both share a Mexican style.
But each of them represent a different vision of its gastronomy.
Niño Viejo is more informal, and more colorful. Whereas, Hoja Santa, is the extravagant elegance that defines Albert Adrià´s universe.
Both proposals were necessary to represent the true story of the flavors and traditions of Mexico.
They cannot live one, without the other.
If I had wanted to open a gastronomic Mexican restaurant, people would have told me: : I want cochinita Pibel and tacos.”
Something would have been missing.
And If I had opened Niño Viejo only, they would have told us : You opened just a Taco place?
Understand? , I mean…being you,..
So well, we wanted to open Hoja Santa because we believe is the way to express ourselves, and our vision to Mexican cuisine, right?
I believe that many chefs see the Mexican cuisine only from its tradition.
But I think that there is much more there.
Much more than the Mexican food can offer.
We have always respected tradition, but when we opened we created what we wanted to do, to establish our own language.
That is way the language of Hoja Santa is so remarkable. we have more connection with the organic world.
We have a great connection with tradition, but also with creativity.
At every dish in Hoja Santa, there is a great respect for traditional Mexican cuisine.
Local dishes with exotic flavors and the added value of creativity and the reinterpretation of the contemporanean Mexico of Albert and Paco.
For me it was really important that both teams worked together.
And that both teams have the same connection.
At present we have 40 people that work in the two restaurants.
And how many table do you serve here in Hoja Santa?
In Hoja Santa just 30, at the most.
The thing is that they are bigger tables than Niño Viejo. They are more confortable.
They are tables of 1.90 metres where we don´t separate them.
The client arrives and sits down and we are not waiting him to leave the table.
And the largest menu for example, the client can finish it in two hours and a half.
And did the have to adapt the Spanish taste to spicy food?, do you offer spicy dishes here?
How could you deal with it?
This question… this question is often asked,
In my home we didn´t use to eat spicy food or it was quite controlled.
So in my case, I don’t have that strong taste for spicy.
So if I want to make something spicy, I add the spicy but it should also be according to people´s preferences.
You know?, I have always thought about it, because you cannot force people to experience something they don´t feel like doing so.
For example, myself I´m not fond of spicy food.
Exactly.
It´s like in a Japanese restaurant ,  where you decide to add wasawi to your dish or not.
Or somewhere in another part of the world, if people decide to add mustard to the food.
I prefer that people get here and they tell me whether they would like to add spicy or not to their dishes
And that´s precisely why we leave a sauce in the middle of the table, to allow the clients to choose to add spicy to the dish.
Which is something very common in Mexico.
Which is the top dish in Hoja Santa?
Well,..eh..
If it actually does exist.
Because over the last four years we have had a wide range of very good dishes created.
But this also have to do with evolution.
Now,  for example we have a black garlic mole which is made with avocado, that for me this would be a top dish at Hoja Santa. Or the pig taco, for example.
We prepare pig every evening.  We show it to the clients and when we take it from the oven we prepare it and stop the service and at that moment we serve tacos for everyone.
But previously we had an infladita or cochinita pibil. Or just another top dish.
It always has to do with the way you feel and the moment you feel is the best dish.
And according to what I´ve been hearing from everybody, all restaurants have  gone through an evolution.
The first evidence that proves it, was success that came immediately an year after the restaurant opened its doors and obtained a Michellin star.
And the second, was when in 2016 it got a Sol of Guia Rapsol.
These recognitions are part of most of the restaurants that comprise El Barri.
And they show great knowledge on both techniques  and products.
I can say that working  four years in El Barri, is equal to work twelve in the rest of the places.
We have had a rapid evolution.
The motivation and self improvement that we have each day is very important.
So this is what I try to make people understand when they come here.
It hasn´t been easy for us, to get to where we got, and it is still hard.
And at the beginning it was difficult for us to bring clients.
For me, the guests is the most important factor.  They are what give me the motivation each day.
But you have to bear in mind that I spend 16 hours working.
Of course.
Well, this ends up being your life. This is your family.
We leave Hoja Santa, after this double tour full of passion by Mexican culture, and with Paco Mendez invitation to continue to the next restaurant.
I´ll accompany to visit Enigma, Albert´s last adventure in El Barri, you will see, you are gonna like it.
Let´s go.
We are here round the corner, actually we are in the same block. Enigma and Hoja Santa.
Well, they are all in El Barri.
Well in the end, el Barri stands for Barrio in Catalan.
An idea of a concept of businesses that live together.
In our next episode of this special of Chefs TV we will finish our tour with this flourish closing, we will visit Enigma, the last and most innovative proposal of Albert Adriá in El Barri.
His maximum expression as chef and creative mind.
I lead you up to here , Enigma is 10 metres away discover it by yourself.
Traducción y Subt. Inglés por " Laura Amodio "
