As Robert Green, editor of Esquire magazine, writer, scriptwriter and playwright once said: “To succeed in life you don’t need to be a genius, you only need to be able to be ahead of the rest.” Quique Dacosta, a chef backed by his thirst for perfectionism and plethora of innovating concepts, gets a sense of the times in which he lives to anticipate the current evolution; as sensitive to creativity as to the effect of technical progress.
Gifted with an enormous mental strength and relying on his impressive ability to work, Dacosta is one of the few European chefs with the gift of creativity and control of technique, both associated with a particular line of thought. His cuisine, unlike any other, is both local and universal at once. It is as captivating as it is hard to define: his creations play with extremely refined flavors, doses of aesthetic suggestion and their share of gastronomic risk.
He conceives radical avant-garde dishes that take beauty as an element of seduction; and pictorial evocations (figurative expressionism, essential impressionism) as an element of work. He’s an unusual and unwontedly audacious professional capable of creating fashions and starting trends within the exclusive sphere of the European avant-garde.
This book by Montagud Editores does not only anticipate market trends, but it pinpoints a before and after in the editorial process of recipe books.
On the one hand it’s a conventional paper book that highlights Dacosta’s work philosophy and thought. On the other hand, it includes a webpage, an audiovisual support that will allow readers to submerge virtually into the kitchen of Quique Dacosta Restaurante as if they were training on-site. Also, there’s a description of the techniques and recipes created at Quique Dacosta Restaurante between 2000 and 2006. It is an exhaustive and perfectly dated compilation. It’s pure audiovisual gastronomy, the latest in teaching and learning models. It’s a new educational model that, from the point of view of gastronomy, is perhaps equivalent to the most prestigious American and European business schools.
José Carlos Capel
Food critic
www.quiquedacosta.es
Ctra. Les Marines km.3.
03700 Dénia.
Tél.: (+34) 96 578 41 79