Water, the essence of life, is the focal point of Ángel León's creativity, the world's most advanced seafood chef. Not only does he desalinate it through nanobubbles, also serving it to drink, but he transforms it into salt, air, and a palette of textures obtained through a new machine, resembling devices commonly seen in Chinese street markets.
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Sea and sun seem like the ingredients for the perfect vacation. Now, however, they are also the recipe for Ángel León's sustainability, the chef of the sea, who has already explored unknown territories like marine cereals and their cultivation, as well as every minute "waste" of fish. For him, it's time to shift the focus from the content to the container, and since 70% of the water on Earth is salty, making it a cooking ingredient implies the need to desalinate it.
"This is the most exciting project of my life. I never thought Aponiente would come to this point," exclaims León, as reported by ABC. "Humanity occupies 30% of the Earth and we have only 2% of drinking water left. It's a huge problem. At Aponiente, we have sought ways to tell the story of how we see water management and its future." And further: "We will become a restaurant that operates like a plant," he assured Info Bae. "We will not use fresh water and we will not use energy, as we extract 99% of what we need from sunlight." From his point of view, it's about transforming the matter that underpins life, from salty to sweet, from contaminated to pure, from liquid into a rainbow of untried consistencies.
The first two goals have been achieved through chemical processes, which have made the use of seawater in the restaurant possible. Mainly nanobubbles that capture impurities and salt, making it drinkable and useful in cleaning due to the nitrogen content, which reduces detergents. The third through a newly designed machine, called Fantasy Ice, developed by David Klimer inspired by a Chinese street device for preparing syrups and granitas.
But as in the days of elBulli's salted ice creams, we move into the kitchen, beyond pastry and mixology. Its use is not limited to H2O: it can extract novel textures even from squid milk and cockle water, as shown in the dishes presented at Madrid Fusion. And it cleans in 2 minutes, making it suitable for use in full service. In the 2024 menu, "The States of Water" are presented as salt, ice, or air inside a bubble, and "The Different Forms of Water", obtained mechanically; nor is there a lack of an algae that opens like a sunflower upon contact with the liquid.
