DiverXO, Madrid’s three-Michelin-starred restaurant, is not exactly the place you go to improvise a meal. In theory. In practice, according to Pablo Colmenares, chef and former member of Dabiz Muñoz‘s team, more than one customer has arrived with no idea what was on the menu. The result: misunderstandings, unusual requests and the occasional absurd scene that would not fit in an avant-garde kitchen.
Colmenares, who today runs the kitchen at New York Burger, spent three years at DiverXO, just as the restaurant was getting its third Michelin star. A time he remembers with a mixture of fascination, chronic fatigue and almost reverential respect for a project as ambitious as it was exhausting. “My day to day was to arrive, change and start running. I just remember running, running and running,” he summarizes in an interview a few months ago on the podcast Con los pies en el suelo.
The demands were brutal, both internal and external. And, he says, not everyone who sat at the table was prepared for what was served there: “There were customers who came blindly, as a gift or because they had heard about it, and found themselves with a duck tongue confit with red tomatillo. Their faces would unhinge.”
Diverxo’s dishes: unmodifiable
Dabiz couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to change any of his dishes. Literally. So says Colmenares, who recalls the case of a lady who, as soon as she sat down, asked for lemon and tabasco to go with anything they put in front of her. Because that’s how she ate. In an environment where every ingredient has been calibrated to the millimeter, the request sounded like heresy.
The reaction, rather than anger, was one of disbelief. “It’s like if an artist paints a picture and someone comes along and says he prefers it yellow, and he starts painting over it.” The metaphor is his own.
In that context, Dabiz Muñoz’s perfectionism was not a whim, but a pillar of the project. “They wanted to do very special and unique things,” insists the chef. There is no room for improvisation or last-minute dressing.
Haute cuisine and disconnection
But beyond the anecdotal, Colmenares’ statements point to something more fundamental: the disconnection that sometimes exists between haute cuisine and the client who comes without knowing what he or she is going for. “The expectations of those who go to a restaurant with three stars are not the same as those of one with two,” he reflects. The problem arises when there are no expectations. Or when they are built on television clichés, Instagram or a poorly contextualized birthday gift.
In his new project, Colmenares notices a notable difference. At New York Burger, with ten locations in Madrid and surrounding areas, “the customer comes knowing what’s there: smoked, grilled and a carefully selected product. And that helps. He says that his clientele is “more educated”, more informed. Something that does not always happen in the elite gastronomic temples, where sometimes the prestige outweighs the real interest in the proposal.
While DiverXO sought absolute perfection -at the cost, according to him, of 17-hour working days and a life that gave no respite-, now he is committed to a more sustainable balance, without renouncing technique or creativity. Although he makes it clear that his time at Muñoz’s restaurant was decisive. “It inspired me and gave me the tools for everything I do today”.