“I’ve been in Miami for the last 8 years, but have been in gastronomy since the age of 15 – heck, it wasn’t even legal back then to work at that age, but I really wanted to buy a motorcycle, so I got a gig as a dishwasher to be able to fund that. I actually studied music and worked in restaurants to fund that, there was also a point where I went to cooking school on the side too while doing those two things but then realized cooking school wasn’t helpful, so I dropped that and focused solely on cooking – and here we are, 24 years later.
There’s a big difference between kitchens in Spain, my home, and here; kitchens there are a lot more demanding, but this city has significantly grown over the last handful of years, we’ve seen an influx of big names and a lot of notorious restaurants have begun to pop up. I also love that the media is focusing on guys like us, humble people who work hard and believed in the city when nobody did rather than just put the lens on the millionaires who drop money on a joint that suddenly opens just to create food for social media pictures.
My issue with how things have begun moving is the influx of touristy restaurants and the focus on gentrifying everything. We need more of these family-run places that have been around for a very long time, people who dedicate their lives to their work and find a balance between being able to earn money with the food we sell and actually enjoy what we do. I never liked that buy low sell high and take pictures idea.”