Why must most foodies constantly check out new, fashionable places? And why is it—more importantly, perhaps—that media outlets cannot keep their hands off the latest restaurant, only to forget about it soon after?
In journalistic writing, I know that what is new makes the news. However, unlike, let’s say, murder chronicles, gastronomic journalism could, in principle, detach itself from this relentless seeking of what is new.
Because let me tell you, dear reader, not all that is brand new will survive the reading time of a short web article. And something that has been around for a while, in some cases, has real stories to tell.
Kaleja in Málaga, for example, is not frequently popping up in the news.
And yet, it has many stories that have much more significance than telling a non-story about “the ten restaurants in Malaga” or whatever the media and social media require these days to have some eyeballs land on written words.
The first story that Kaleja tells us is the name.
If we start with the name, and as Umberto Eco tells us, EVERYTHING there is to say about what is in a name:
Kaleja is a Sephardic word: alley, precisely where our house is located. A hidden alley in the middle of the Jewish quarter, Marquesa de Moya, in which Dani cooks time, in the form of embers and candles, with deep roots in the earth, its matter and its roots.
After all, stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus, says Eco, which we roughly translate as “the ancient rose remains (only) in the name; we only possess bare names.”
Kaleja is a domestic alley, a small street that leads to a house. And more likely, to a home. And what is a home in our joint and shared Imaginarium? A home is a place with safety, comfort and a kindled flame.
Similarly, both the “pochas con tomate e rillette” here in the picture below and the “merluza a la candela” call for telling stories of long, simmering cooking over indistinguishable fires in houses that we can identify as home because of that light, that candela or stove, whose warmth and fire never goes out.
This story intertwines with the tale of escudella, which is so dear to me and brought Maria Nicolau to fame and, thankfully, the public.
"The escudella is not a recipe or a tradition or a cooking technique. The bowl is not a broth with things, nor a stew of meat and vegetables, nor a pasta or vegetable dish... It is an old song that tells us about cyclical time and linear time, country and city, hunger and excesses, precision and noise, tradition and modernity, what is ordinary and what is extraordinary.”
Here below is the menu I ate that day at Kaleja.
I was sitting in the kitchen alone with the kitchen brigade, in a blissful moment reminding us of those long-gone moments, sitting at the firewood stove at grandma’s place while she was fixing some delicacy.
As Dani was not there that day, I felt like when the adults are out, you sneak into the kitchen with some cousins to steal from the pots and pans and fix a delicious Merenda for yourself.
And what if the brand-new thing everyone talks about is just a transient fad? We see it repeatedly, and it is part of our nature. Imagine nowadays queuing for El Bulli or Noma: you’d be mad to do it.
Even with their respective attempts to resuscitate their glory, these two restaurants, concepts, and hype remain anchored into a past that is not coming back, no matter how loud their apologists cry.
“Stop trying to make fetch happen”, says wise Regina George to one of her minions.
We should stop trying to jeopardize the future by remaining anchored to some past glory. Offering an Asian tour like Noma or a B&B like ElBulli means you are at the rope's end. We all know that every restaurant concept migrating East is on its path of decline, and as money is mainly to be found eastward, they move in that sense.
Be it Da Vittorio in Singapore or Muñoz in Dubai.
Any eastward move means cashing out fast before it is too late.
When it is too late, you are a relic, and nobody talks about you, so you are safe for a circle of aficionados. So goes history, and it is unforgiving. We will all be forgotten in a minute when we kick the boots. The same happens for once famous and renowned hotels like the Aviz in Lisbon or dining rooms like the Algonquin in New York.
How many of you even care about the Viridiana restaurant in Madrid now that it is closed and its aficionados and patrons are slowly retiring?
And so, you will ask, if all old is decay, why not get excited like a foodie about every new opening?
No matter what, it is the story that a restaurant tells that matters, and not all restaurants have stories to tell. Some are dull accounting balance sheets, and others are glossy prints of vapid chefs.
But others, again, have stories to tell, and more: stories that one feels the need to share, to bring along, that will have a transformative impact on their lives. Of course, not every meal should be a transformative event.
But if we think of unique dining, that is the bare minimum we should trade our time, money and patience for.