219 Moo 5, Angthong Koh Samui Surat Thani Tailandia T. +66.(0)77.243000
If we ever were to draw an identikit of the perfect contemporary chef, this would have the smiling features of Alex Gares, the 32 years old executive chef of Six Senses group’s Soneva Fushi, a spectacular restaurant resort clinging to Baa atoll, on the Maldives island of Kunfunadhoo (copy and paste this name on Google images, if you dare).
At the starting blocks, long before cooking barefoot, the Catalan chef used to wear comfortable shoes: he had to face a long rise through the ranks, at 16 years old in the form of unbearable stenches coming out of a Chinese restaurant in Barcelona. But after that, when they noticed his talent, he collected great experiences and references by Andoni’s Mugaritz, Ferran Adrià’s Bulli, Carme Ruscalleda in Sant Pau and Martín Berasategui in Lasarte, the same gentleman from whom he learned to run like a clockwork Hotel Condes’ restaurant Lasarte in the city of Gaudí, during a fundamental four-year period work, 2004-2008. Hence the Maldives call where every day, in spite of what people think, he sees sand and sea like a distant mirage, because to get a dive he must first to get over a 140 people staff, the same number of guys he disciplines between kitchens and dining rooms.
And what about his style? Ladies and gentlemen, you can do miracles even in a place where, in most cases, there are just fresh crabs, coconuts and rice. In an edible scenario where fishes are often only apparently fresh. Gares likes to do it (and make other people do) as no-one around here: organic, light and local, three adjectives that fit like a glove to the Identity Golose 2010’s leitmotif: the luxury of simplicity. This brilliant guy will bring on stage a kaleidoscope crowd with spices and lightened Indian and Sri Lankan culinary traditions. Shrimp curry where the curry is in a salad and the Maldivian hyper-classical Green mango curry but in a sweet version. Because we have to stop speaking of bird or swine flu: the real pandemic today is the avant-garde cuisine.
by
born in Milan, 1973, freelance journalist, coordinator of Identità Golose World restaurant guidebook since 2007, he is a contributor for several magazines and teaches History of gastronomy and Culinary global trends into universities and institutes. twitter @gabrielezanatt instagram @gabrielezanatt
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