“Flavor is God”

García is convinced that it is worth it and he is right, because customers keep knocking on his door.

-You have just arrived from Costa Rica and Jaén is leaving soon: why did you go to Central America and why are you going to the neighboring province.

-I laugh a lot sometimes with my mother-in-law when she asks me why I’m going to Costa Rica: I tell her to tile a bathroom. She laughs a lot. We work a lot on sustainability, with zero kilometres.

-Zero kilometer?

-Now I tell you. We are an example of sustainability and this year they called us to attend a conference… Cosa Rica is a very green and beautiful country. And there we told what we do at Choco in terms of sustainability and zero kilometers. Kilometer zero means that not only what we cook, but also everything around us, we try to be within a hundred kilometers at most. All our products come from small local producers, from Córdoba and its province. This is what we are working on. In Costa Rica we tried to show the world that Choco is also green, that it is clean. It was a conference organized by the Costa Rican government and a private company called Enjoy. Additionally, we hosted a dinner for eighty famous guests from Costa Rica. And now I’m going to Jaén with some colleagues, with whom we’re moving Gastroarte, with whom I’m moving Andalusian gastronomy throughout Spain.

-You never get used to it: Choco is in the heart of Fuensanta, as Noor is in Cañero.

-We have been here for fifty years now. This is the bar where I was born. I ventured to cook here a little less than twenty years ago, a cuisine which was complicated, because it is true that in the Center and in the tourist area it is easier for people to come and see you. But I trusted that in this house I was born into, I would have the motivation to create and do what I wanted…and that’s what happened. I really enjoyed it.

-This house inspires you.

-Correct. This morning, when I arrived, my mother was there. To give you an idea: I celebrated my first communion here… Here I experienced very spectacular, very beautiful moments which are recorded in the history of Choco.

-You have your ten commandments. I noted several of them. One of them says that “Choco is an attitude”. Which?

-Yes, the one he gave us

or my father all my life… It’s dedication, it’s passion… There’s also this element of madness… It always has to be a positive attitude. At the moment, we hear noise: it’s not sad, it’s joy, because we cook here, we do a lot of things here during the day and it’s experienced. And all this is very difficult in a restaurant where there is a lot of pressure, where every day we try to ensure that there are no mistakes. The attitude is to try to be better every day.

-Another commandment: “Knowledge enhances creativity.” »

-Yeah. Look, we were among the first to be creative in Córdoba in the kitchen, and it was very difficult to tell people that I was drinking in tradition and that everything we created was in service of tradition. I have just been trained at the School [Gran Capitán]and in recent years what I have done is continue to learn while cooking, continue to perfect the technique so that the product shines. This is what we have done over the last twenty years: I am very happy with the cuisine that is done at Choco, where people eat in a way they have not eaten in the last twenty years.

-One more: “Flavor is the epicenter of our work.”

-Yes… It’s important. Often, we chefs have influences and inspiration from other masters and sometimes we get carried away by the technique, by the aesthetic, by the product. And in this commandment that you quote, we are talking about the flavor, which is God. In cooking, there are no lies: either it’s delicious or it’s bad, there are no half measures, there is no gray. The flavor is Olympus. And the taste of flavor must sometimes be fleeting.

-And does it have to be sustainable?

-Yes, it must be durable. Look, there are many things in flavor: in flavor there is memory, there is aroma. When you are able to prepare a tasty dish, taste memory reflects, and taste memory speaks about what you ate, who you ate it with, and who made it. For example, if your grandmother prepared it and you were with your cousins ​​while you ate. This is all flavor.

-If I ask you what it means to eat, what do you answer?

-For me, eating is a joy. Eating is depth. Eating is a memory.

-It’s not just about eating.

-No, no, no. There are times to nourish the body, but what we have been doing here for several years is nourishing the soul in memory, in flavor… The customer who comes to this restaurant comes to live an experience.

-To be a good cook, do you have to be an artist?

-To be a good cook, you have to be a good gourmet: eat a lot and well. You have to eat a lot and well, you have to enjoy the product and continue to learn every day. And you don’t just learn it in a restaurant, it can also be from a family member or friend who prepares a dish for you. Often people think that it is complicated to feed a cook, and it is not complicated: you just need to put love into it.

-In the cuisine of our mothers’ generation, there is an inexhaustible heritage, don’t you think?

-This is where traditional, homemade cuisine is born. This is what we drink.

-You said this: “When I serve a dish, I try to tell the story of Andalusia.” There, it’s nothing.

-Yes… Now, on the Choco menu there are many points where we tell anecdotes that we don’t want to lose. We will soon start burning alhocema to add aroma to the restaurant. It’s lavender, wild lavender, that I remember in my grandmother’s house, because she added a bouquet of lavender to the picón brazier. This aroma not only brings back memories for me, but also for the customer. We also have a wine to keep that we put with the starters. We always try to ensure that the culture and what those behind us have experienced is reflected in the gastronomy. We are trying to ensure that Andalusia is not lost. We move very quickly in life.

-And mealtime is a good time to stop.

-Yeah. This is what we were talking about before: taste memory is what brings you memory.

-The four pillars of the restaurant are roots, soul, ingenuity and essence. That’s what everything is built on, isn’t it?

-Yeah. These are the pillars… Family, memories… The things that make us relatively comfortable. People who work with us feel comfortable here.

-When you hire an employee, how long does it take to know if they are a good cook?

-With movement. Seeing how he moves from the first minute he’s in the kitchen, we already know what his level is. I like that they know little.

-So you can teach him, right?

-Yes, to be able to adapt it to Choco, which is a house with a lot of personality in which not everyone fits, so the staff must have the desire to continue learning, they must have the enthusiasm, that he has a vocation.

Motives

-That it is not marked.

-Of course: be open to what we do here.

-The renewal of the Michelin star each year will be a great motivation for you.

-Yeah. It’s motivation because they continue to give it to us. We continue to bet on it. Our chip changed because we were in the Michelin Guide, which was national, and we moved to an international guide, and that put us in the spotlight of another audience, and that obliges us even more to excellence , not to make mistakes. and that means being as fresh as possible every day.

-But, man, to err is human.

-Correct. Mistakes are made, what we try to do is keep them very small.

-Where are you going to eat in Cordoba.

-In many places. I won’t say anything.

-Do you recognize him?

-Yes… I’m going to see a lot of friends from the city. In Córdoba, the gastronomy is very good, and even more so in recent years. I appreciate tradition and innovation. For example, I like Japanese cuisine or hamburgers, which are very trendy.