Dabiz Muñoz at Identità Milano 2022: I want to create, cook, be happy

Happiness is revolutionary. Dabiz Muñoz, the postpunk chef of DiverXO, says this is what he learnt from the pandemic. «I learnt I want to have fun. I learnt I want to be happy. I learnt I want to cook». And who are we to stand between this 42-year-old and his dream? 

Muñoz presents himself from the stage of Identità Milano 2022 in an interview guided by Paolo Marchi. Before the talk, a video that is a small masterpiece of greenway vision. Six pompous and bored guests sitting at a table at DiverXO first find themselves smiling, and then break any limit as the dishes arrive, transforming the dinner into a pochade. A luxurious, beautiful, bad-mannered film of which Marchi says, at the end: «If you don't feel like making love, after watching it, well, nada mas».

Dabiz talks about the importance of the past two years, «when I certainly became a better chef, perhaps even a better man». A further step forward for someone for whom avantgarde was a raison d'etre, a journey so different from everyone else that it seemed like a walk on a rope above the void. Between abyss and extasy, only a few dozen millimetres. For sure Dabiz seems calmer, more aware.

An almost surprising point of arrival for the restless enfant prodige who, at 27, when in Italy one would still live at home, opened a restaurant in Madrid «with no idea as to how to guide it, let alone make it a success» and only six years later he was crowned with three stars, and he's still holding them tight. «If you want to grow in my business, you must surround yourself with the best professionals».

And since professionals, like the best ingredients, need to be paid, hence came the decision of raising the price of the menu very high. A choice many disapproved, but which Dabiz still finds right. «Restaurants must be sustainable not only from a human point of view, but also economic». This is hedonism, my dear. And in the restaurant in Madrid there's also a sign: «No pain, no gain».

New projects. In the meantime, they're moving to a much larger place, over three times the current one, 600 square metres near the Bernabeu stadium, but only seating four more guests, from 36 to 40. Then there's RavioXO, where they make ravioli, and «where you travel from China to Italy and back without making Chinese or Italian cuisine». Then there's GoXO, the delivery restaurant in Barcelona, in which Dabiz swears he uses standards as strict as in the restaurant. «Let me create». Scandalise us, Dabiz.

Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso