Masterchef chef and judge Jordi Cruz declares that his brigade is united and fulfilled. At work, he's not the gruff character from television; quite the opposite, he focuses on the team's serenity.
Cover photo: ©Joan Valera, ABaC Group Press
The News
Masterchef chef and judge Jordi Cruz has stated that in his restaurants, he's not the "gruff character" seen on TV shows; this is evidenced primarily by the fact that his team has remained almost the same since the beginning.
"The guys in my brigade stay with me because there's a good atmosphere, first of all. You can't expect someone to do your job enthusiastically when you mistreat them. And respect is something that isn't taught, it's earned," he stated, according to El Mundo, during the IV National Hospitality Forum, held in Malaga as part of the Hospitality Innovation Show (H&T).
"In my kitchen, I'm a normal, balanced person who wants employees to feel good, fulfilled, discover creativity, have fun, have organization; but we're never despots," he later added. When asked about the work environment and the resulting relationships among chefs, he assured that in TV shows and among professional chefs there's "zero competition," precisely because "everyone is doing very well (at certain levels)."
Envy is absent, even in the case of emulation: "You have to be proud if an important chef is inspired by your work to apply it to his own. And how beautiful it is to create dishes that can also be taken up by other chefs," Cruz assures. Regarding the business model embodied by projects like his ABaC restaurants, it focuses on the concepts of balance and creativity.
But according to the Catalan chef, someone who only wants to surprise has no future, because when the surprise is discovered, it's already over: the basic goal should be to bring the customer back for dinner. "My model is what defines what I've learned: the dishes I liked yesterday bore me today, and I never want to make a worse recipe than yesterday's." Likewise, Cruz acknowledges the benefits that technological development and communications have brought to the hospitality sector since, for example, while a hundred years ago in France a chef prepared a recipe and only his customers knew it was his, now, if he publishes it, everyone knows who it belongs to (and this serves to position oneself correctly in the market).
"In a hundred years, it will still be known that the 'manestra de texturas' is by Ferran Adrià, but it won't be known who made the first béchamel," he observes, concluding his speech.
