"Our cuisine begins in the seedbed'

The Terrae ovens have been reignited in the hands of Ignacio Echapresto, a self-taught chef and advocate of seasonal produce and village cooking. He hails from Daroca in La Rioja, where he and his brother Carlos run the two-star Venta de Moncalvillo, with its own vegetable garden and a cuisine that combines rural flavours with the best avant-garde techniques. I am here for two reasons: memory and gratitude, because when I started out I learnt to cook thanks to going to these kinds of conferences and listening to generous people who gave their time to inspire me, to teach me, and a lot of that has shaped me. Because sharing is the best part of our profession," he began gratefully.

Ignacio is getting to know his native Rioja, with an unwavering commitment to the environment that nourishes him and that he must preserve. We are leaders in sustainability because we are concerned about the state of our habitat and how we want to leave it, although we don't use this word much anymore because it comes from "sostener" (to sustain) and what we really want is to "regenerate"," he points out. Indeed, they transfer everything around them onto the plate, both the product and the tradition, but with a very personal perspective that they have tried to convey to the audience today.

A precious pantry with hundreds of native seeds While preparing some dishes, Ignacio confessed that "our cuisine begins in the seedbed, because for 10 years we have been recovering and preserving native seeds, and currently we have more than 250 seeds for which we do the complete cycle", he revealed, an extraordinary heritage that we show to every customer who arrives at the restaurant, "whom we take on a 25-minute walk through the vegetable garden and pantry, without haste, and that is precisely why we only serve food.

A restaurant should always have "a beginning that attracts you, a development that grips you and an end that captivates you and leaves you wanting more, just like in a good film", he said, highlighting the product as the most important tool. The product and its producers, people who, thanks to their work, make our work easier and who sometimes interpret what nature and they have cooked up for us," he acknowledged.