Are you the same cook who dreamed of being a chef?
My friends criticize me because I still call myself a chef, because I think that it is a profession that never ends. It is a profession that you never stop discovering; you’re always learning. You have to have it in you; you have to play, to have to have fun with it. And you have to always be a cook. If one day you feel like a chef, you stop being a cook, because you stop creating.
That’s what it means to me. I will always be a cook; I will always listen to everybody, because your customers are a school for you every day. Your customers tell you, ‘Listen, I would have liked this better like so. And you take that with you into your practice, and discover that yes, you could have done it better. I don’t think that I was born to be a chef. I’m a cook and that is how I feel: like a cook.
Fish with a tropical aroma
Ingredients
fish fillet / 200g
lemon juice / 100 ml
butter / 58 g
mint / 15 g
basil / 15 g
a pinch of salt and pepper
Luis Alfonso Pérez, Lucio (September 1968). Executive chef, a 1997 graduate of Formatur, a tourism training institute in Cuba. Designated Executive Chef, Chef Garde Manager and Professor-Consultant by the Guitar Hotels chain of Spain. Has been a chef in the hotels Habana Libre, Meliá Cohiba, Habana Riviera and the restaurant El Mercurio. He was executive chef at the Hurón Azul restaurant, and owner of the La Paila restaurant. He now oversees the El Gijonés restaurant at the Sociedad Asturiana de Cuba (Asturian Society of Cuba).
