CONTENTS

8 I N T RO D U C T I O N
8825
THE
MUGARITZ
EXPERIENCE

18 BEGINNINGS
1123
26 I N S P I R AT I O N

332
2 N AT U R E
1182
85 THE
RECIPES

54 A NEW
L A N G UAG E 204 G L O S S A RY

6683 2 3388
COOKING
AND INDEX
SCIENCE

mugaritz
 N AT U R EE
ATUR

6 mugaritz
 ‘ M u g a r i t z ’ is also the road leading up to the restaurant, the
countryside that can be seen from the car and that, bend after bend, fuels the
expectations of everyone that pays us a visit. Mugaritz is also its setting. It is
that oak woodland over there, the largest in Guipúzcoa; it is the orchards
and farmhouses, the local human, animal and plant environment, which
dictated our way of doing things right from the outset. We live according to
the rhythms marked by the seasons: we accommodate our creations to what
nature has to offer at the time, without daring to push for anything else. We
FF Ee R
rNnsS , like to think that the restaurant is not confined to the limits of the room but
is projected through the large windows; in the same way that we believe that
weeds
w eeds our surroundings are an extension of our small vegetable garden. Everything
that can be glimpsed behind the windows is also Mugaritz...although it
and
a nd might not have turned out that way.

baby
baby At t h e b e g i nn i n g we were idle. In 1998, we had just opened
carrots
c arrots the restaurant, but there were no customers, so we spent the day waiting for
the phone to ring, staring into the distance, at the hills and meadows, at that
indistinguishable expanse of green that surrounded us on all sides. We were
city dwellers – we still are – the asphalt of the city was our natural territory,
so that pervasive greenness stretching out before our eyes seemed never-
ending, without even the slightest variation in shade. It was a green that
could only be described as total, categorically and undeniably green. The
hills were green; and so too were the trees sprouting from a bed of grass in
which every blade was also green. In those days we were still talking about
‘blades of grass’ rather than ‘herbs’.

In h i s b oo k The Omnivore’s Dilemma Michael Pollan accurately

describes this ‘uninformed’ way of perceiving nature – the only way that
existed then:

How much do you really see when you look at a patch of grass? The colour
green, of course, perhaps a transitory recording of the breeze: an abstraction..
Grass to us is more ground than figure, a backdrop to more legible things
in the landscape: trees, animals, buildings. It’s less a subject in its own right
than a context.

T h e ‘ g r a ss BA C K D RO P ’ began to lose its status as a context

P r e v i o u s P AG E S
Andoni Aduriz in the dining room
at Mugaritz.
O pp O S IT E p a g e
Plants local to the area around
the restaurant.
and turn into ‘a field of herbs’ the day we decided to go out there (after
admitting we had nothing better to do) and pay a courtesy call to our new
neighbours, the plant inhabitants occupying the field opposite us, with a
view to paying our respects and trying to get to know them better.
Suddenly light was shed on some of these areas: the continuous expanse of
green began to offer up shapes and hues which until then had been invisible
to us. Here and there, we were struck by glimmers of light homing in on us
from various sides – as if clamouring for closer analysis, vying with one

8 mugaritz N ATUR E 9

O P P O S IT E P AG E
Edible leaves growing in the
greenhouse at Mugaritz.
10 mugaritz
another to be afforded greater attention. We began to gather a few leaves
and sprigs of herbs. We snapped them off and smelt the fragrance,
sometimes we chewed them, wondering whether or not they were edible,
suspecting, sensing that it might be an idea to think about using some of
them as ingredients in our dishes. We delved into books on botany and saw
that the herbs that were considered to be ‘culinary’ were those that
contained a large number of essential oils. Then there were the ‘medicinal’
herbs, those herbs that had proven curative or palliative powers on human
beings. But something didn’t add up: is it only the aroma that determines
whether a herb is not just medicinal, but also edible? This question was
followed – and continues to be followed – by many others. So we began to
do some tests, cooking with herbs that were, theoretically, ‘non culinary’.
Trips into the hills in pursuit of wild herbs turned into an obsession. When
we discovered a new, apparently edible plant, we felt like we had won the
lottery. We ran with our treasure trove to the Sociedad de Ciencias
Aranzadi (Aranzadi Science Society) (where they looked at us as if we had
just come from Alpha Centauri), to request the botanists’ help in
identifying them, in verifying their degree of toxicity and whether there
was any history of their use in the kitchen.
We r e a l i sed t h at even what is closest to us can be made to
seem exotic and mysterious, merely on account of ignorance, because even
though we are surrounded by a specific environment, we’ve never really
lived in real contact with it. Tradition has brought peppers, tomatoes,
potatoes to our plates – products that not so long ago were foreign, and
came from the other side of the ocean. That tradition was instilled thanks to
the socialisation and repetition of formulas that were carried out using
produce that was on hand all year round and that was commonly considered
good and nutritious. Fuelled by our passion for wild herbs, we decided to
?
carry out a test: to skip the practicalities and attempt to establish a new
tradition based entirely on hedonism, bringing seasonal products from our
surroundings to the table that tradition had completely overlooked. This is
how we created a dish with pumpkin, cottage cheese, fern and hay, in which
the latter served as a powerful, evocative spice. All the elements in the dish
represented our environment perfectly, yet those who tried it considered it
to be extremely foreign, innovative, radical, avant-garde. No one identified
it as being something that was their own, local or familiar. Quite the
contrary: it was a dish that caused tension.
C onsc i o u s ly o r u nconsc i o u s ly, we began
to recreate landscapes in our dishes, trying to capture images, aromas,
sensations within the boundaries of the dish. Something that also ended up
being reflected in the names of the recipes that sometimes reflected the
place or the season when the ingredients flourished: Beech Forest Salad,
Sun-ripened Garden Red Fruits, Memories of a Spring Morning.
N ATUR E 11
 What we were really doing was exploiting the natural resources from a
different perspective: the perspective of someone who has all their needs
covered. Our neighbour, Luis, who lives right next door to us, sees nature
through the eyes of someone that knows it like the back of their hand. He
draws everything from it that he needs to survive. For Luis, it is a space he
has learnt to master and tame to suit his own requirements. We had really
very little knowledge of nature and approached it meekly, adopting an
attitude of seeking rather than demanding, with an emphasis on the
symbolic and poetic aspects, instead of more practical matters. We were
putting a lot of effort into gathering herbs. These were not obtained in
large quantities nor did they offer us a taste that surpassed the quality of
cultivated varieties...However, in itself such effort had a real sentimental
and testimonial value. The symbolism that these species acquire by
becoming ingredients goes far beyond their sensory significance. The
gesture of including a charred fern leaf in a dish generates a kind of
pleasure that goes beyond the skills of the palate and the demands of
the stomach.

O F C O UR S E , Luis thinks we are crazy! Every time he sees us picking

the sorrel and dandelion beneath his apple trees, he looks at us as if we’re
insane. In his opinion, there is nothing more exotic ... and they grow no
more than twenty metres from the door of his house. However, if you show
him a pineapple, he would not take even two seconds to identify it as a
pineapple, even though it only sneaked into our diet a few decades ago and
grows ten thousand kilometres away from the door of his home, in Costa
Rica, from where it continues to be imported. It is clear that today exotic is
no longer associated with distance. Today, exotic is synonymous with the
unknown. And the unknown, or mysterious, can be hiding right next to us,
under that apple tree.

Acco r d i n g to L u i s , the purslane that grows around his

b o t t o m l ef t a nd RIGHT
Gathering local plants.
C E N TR E
The exterior of the restaurant
in Errenteria.
N E X T P AG E
The restaurant interior.
potatoes, beans and peppers is a weed, something he rips out and throws
away, an evil that must be eradicated. What he doesn’t know is that in other
places it is cultivated in greenhouses, which other cultures consider as
having added-value. They are only ‘weeds’ because that’s what people have
told him, that’s the way he learnt, not because they really are. The fact that
some time ago we asked his permission to use them in one of our dishes
did nothing but confirm that we were not right in the head, although he
was grateful that we saved him the work of ripping them out. The dish
was called Red Prawns Submerged in Hay-Infused Tea, ‘Garden Weeds’,
which was a pure provocation, but also offered a surprise. Challenging
someone to eat the weeds opened a door to the unknown; it introduced
an element of risk in the menu, a certain tension. But it also surprises you
with something so familiar. Instead of trying to wow with the most
extraordinary tropical fruit, from some remote corner of Southeast Asia,

12 mugaritz N ATUR E 13
14 mugaritz N ATUR E 15
 C U C UMB E R IM P R E G N AT E D WITH GAZ P A C H O
WAT E R , F R O Z E N D R O P L E T S O F G O AT ’ S C H E E S E
A N D R E Q UI E N II MI N T L E AV E S

I N GR E D I E N T S P R E PARATI O N

— 700 g tomato TH E G a z pac h o Peel the onions, garlic and cucumbers. FOR 8 PEOPLE
— 500 g cucumber Remove the stalk from the pepper and tomato. Cut all the vegetables
— 100 g onion
— 80 g green pepper
into medium-sized pieces and put them in container with the water
— 10 g garlic and salt. Leave to macerate for 4-5 hours. Next, process the
— 15 g salt vegetables in parts in a blender or using a handheld blender. Pass the
— 1.5 l mineral water
liquid purée through paper filters or a very fine mesh strainer. Collect
the liquid that has filtered owing to the weight of the actual purée
without applying any type of pressure.

— 1 kg cucumber TH E C U C UMB E R Slice the cucumber into 4-cm cylinders. Peel

— 20 g salt them vertically with a pointed knife and with only one continual
movement of the wrist so that there are no uneven edges.
Place the cucumber in a container and sprinkle it with salt. Let it
sweat for 10 minutes, rinse with water and leave to dry. Pour the
translucent gazpacho into a vacuum-sealed pot and add the cucumber
cylinders. Impregnation will occur at room temperature by opening
and closing the airflow of the pot. As the cucumbers are immersed in
the gazpacho, whenever they need to recover air removed by the
vacuum, they will absorb the surrounding gazpacho, fully soaking it
up. If you do not have this type of pot, put the cucumber into an
airtight bag with the gazpacho and try to remove as much air as
possible from the interior. Leave the cucumbers to macerate and
absorb the liquid for one day. In either case, once the impregnation
has occurred, set aside half the well-filtered, cold liquid and keep the P R E S E N TATI O N
cucumbers immersed in the other half until serving. & F I N I S HI N G

— 200 g lactic acid fermentation
creamy goat’s cheese
— 40 Corsican mint leaves
(mentha requienii)
TH E C H E E S E Put the cheese into a baby’s bottle and let a few Store plates with a slight dip in the
drops fall into a container with liquid nitrogen so that they acquire freezer to hold the gazpacho
the shape of a teardrop. Strain and store the frozen teardrops in the consommé. Place the cucumber on
freezer at -18ºC. the cold plate and place a few
cheese teardrops on top. Scatter a
TH E MI N T Cut the tiny mint leaves carefully and rinse them in few mint leaves and finish off by
cold water with food disinfectant. Run them under cold water and serving a little of the cold gazpacho
keep them between damp paper towels in the refrigerator. consommé.

RECIPES
16 mugaritz 17
M u g a r i t z : A N ATURAL S C I E N C E O F C O O KI N G S pec i f i cat i ons
is the definitive book on Mugaritz, the ground-breaking restaurant in the
Basque country, northern Spain, which was recently voted the world’s Binding: Hardback
third best restaurant in the S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants Format: 290 x 250 mm
Awards. Spain has long been at the leading edge of culinary creativity, Extent: 240 pp
and with his refined, intelligent cooking and inspired approach to creating Number of images: 150 colour illustrations
new dishes, head chef Andoni Aduriz is at the forefront of the movement. Word count: 60,000 words
The book contains 70 definitive recipes and photographs for his signature ISBN: 978 0 7148 6363 4
dishes, as well as six chapters explaining the creative development and
innovations behind the exceptional food, fully illustrated with Phaidon Press Limited
photographs, archival images and diagrams. For the first time, the Regent’s Wharf
definitive account of the creative process behind the signature dishes All Saints Street
is available to inspire all chefs, food-lovers and anyone interested London n1 9pa
22 mugaritz N at u r E 23

in creativity.
P E r H a P S t H E f i r S t creation that exemplifies this kind of
Phaidon Press Inc.
180 Varick Street
relationship with the environment was “Roasted and raw vegetables, wild
and cultivated shoots and leaves”. Almost since the beginning, we have had a
little garden in which, in addition to flowers and herbs, we also used to
grow vegetables: pumpkin, courgettes, Jerusalem artichokes, asparagus ...
For this dish, we wanted to take a giant leap: we would not use our

Andon i Ad u r i z is one of Spain’s most innovative chefs. New York, NY 10014

P E rE J i l r i z a d o
vegetables but we would go and search for them in the surrounding area,
which since then we have considered as an extension of our garden. Not
only did we not have enough space to produce them, but we thought that by
PErifollo PErEJil
buying them from producers in the area we were supporting our local area.

Having trained under Ferran Adrià at elBulli, he is widely recognized as

The dish was composed of dozens of different vegetables, so we started
knocking on many doors; we visited many small local markets… We started
talking to farmers about our obsession with textures, that we needed the
best pods, but picked just at the moment when they begin to sprout.
giraSolES
Carrots, of course, but we wanted tiny baby carrots, pulled from the earth

one of Ferran’s most talented protegés and the chef at the vanguard of www.phaidon.com
when they are so small and delicate that you can eat eight at a time.
Gradually we found producers who were open to adapt to what we asked of
them, even though they thought we were delusional. Sometimes, they were
frutoS roJoS
HORTALIZAS
y b ayaS the ones who provides us with their know-how and expertise, which
established the guidelines that we should follow. It was not easy. No farmer

Spain’s culinary future.

in his right mind harvests his vegetables before they have reached a
minimum profitable size: the heavier they are the more money. This is why
HiErbaS
Para many of the unique producers with whom we work today share a common
iNfuSioNES denominator: profitability is not their main objective. They use what they
grow for their own consumption and that of their family and bring the rest
to market or sell us their surplus, but they do not earn their living from it.
The guy who supplies us with baby squid goes fishing because he enjoys
doing so. The same goes for the person who comes to our door with a
basket full of xixas (wild mushrooms) after having spent a fantastic evening
© 2011 Phaidon Press Limited
in the forest. For all of them, profitability comes fifth or sixth in the list of
HiErb aS values they demand from their products. Quality tops the list. After all, it is
Pag E 3 4
aromÁtiC aS lECHugaS C alab azaS florES HoJaS
acepudandus elicidust estor rentio what they themselves, their children or grandchildren are going to put in
y ESPECiaS
debit, nulpa nonseque nonsed their mouths every day. And that maximum quality, that excellence is
quaectusae. ficatiusciis archillique precisely what we are looking for. Quantity doesn’t matter to us: we want
those carrots, xixas, cuttlefish, and we don’t care if it is one kilo, two kilos
Pag E 3 5

acepudandus elicidust estor rentio
debit, nulpa nonseque nonsed
quaectusae. ficatiusciis archillique
Pag E 3 6 - 3 7
acepudandus elicidust estor rentio
debit, nulpa nonseque nonsed
ColES quaectusae. ficatiusciis archillique
lab aNda
Pag E 3 8
or twelve. We know that behind exceptional produce lies insecurity, the
comfort, regularity and the constancy that the market of supply and demand
offers makes all products more or less the same, it eliminates their
uniqueness, and it provides substandard produce. We want those peas. We
know that they are not always going to be available. but we also know that
when we have them, they will be extraordinary, even if we have so few that
half the diners will not be able to sample them.

lab aNda runtiamet utata as sincita volessi f ro m a P r a C t i C a l point of view, this has always marked our
nessi ut dignatem reptat. proposal and in recent years even more radically: it has forced us to work with

36 mugaritz N at u r E 37

Rr E C Ii P EESS