Gelinaz, the chef’s collective,  are back in town on the 3rd December. But this time, they are not travelling, they are staying “at home”. What travels this time, are their recipes. Each chef had to submit eight recipes that are typical for him/her, but she/he never served them at the restaurant yet. Those recipes were then shuffled and sent to another chef who will remix them in his/her own way and serve on the 3rd of December, for one night only, dishes inspired by those recipes to her/his guests. The guests and the chef will get to know whose recipes was interpreting the chef only at the end of the dinner through the Gelinaz ambassador who will attend the dinner (I will be that night the ambassador at the Aimsir restaurant in Ireland). Ambassadors will also take care of communication from the restaurants on that night, so if you are curious what is happening on the other side of the world, do follow us on Instagram (mine is here).

Santiago Lastra has received his recipes. Let’s see what he says?

What was your first thought when you read the recipes you received?

The suspense is over! I was praying not to have over 30 pages of recipes including dishes I had never
heard of and that might take weeks to prepare.

What do you think of them now?

I’m really happy. They are straight forward, even though they include some ingredients that I wouldn’t normally use but they are easy to substitute for British and Mexican produce.

If you had to choose an animal to describe them, what would it be?

A happy monkey.

How will you approach it?

I will put my own twist on the recipes and techniques so that they suit my style and the ingredients that I use. Our guests will experience a menu that I would never have even considered making normally, but will clearly demonstrate similar tastes and flavours to my usual repertoire. 

What will be the greatest challenge for you in this Gelinaz project?

As we haven’t opened our restaurant yet, we want to create a similar experience to that which we aim to have at KOL. In order to do this, we have to bring everything over to the venue including the plates, wines, mezcal, our team and of course, the food we have prepared. The logistics are the biggest challenge for us. It’s going to be lots of fun, and I am even wondering if some of the dishes will eventually make it onto the menu at KOL.

And what are you looking forward to?

It’s a huge honour to be part of this and I can’t wait for the event itself. Our main priority is making sure our guests are happy, but we are really looking forward to finding out where in the world our recipes end up.

After this event is behind you, what’s the next thing?

Opening KOL early next year! I’ll be taking a break in Eastern Europe to visit wineries and then I’ll be heading back to Mexico to spend Christmas with my family. After that, I will be focusing on opening our restaurant and making sure everything goes smoothly. 

Santiago will cook at Carousel in London. You can buy the tickets here.

PS Do check also Virgilio Martinez, Alex Atala, Zaiyu Hasegawa and Alberto Landgraf.