Roberto Montiel is one of the most recognized chefs in the country and one of the most relevant in Patagonia. Those who visit the Casa Blanca restaurant, in Centenario, can appreciate the uniqueness of his recipes: a mix of regional flavor and other cultures, traditional taste and avant-garde technique.
In this interview Roberto Montiel tells how he entered the world of gastronomy and gave some advice for young people who dream of being chefs.
Roberto Montiel. Photo by Francisco Sánchez Valassina
His story in the field began when he was only 13 years old, in a grocery store in Buenos Aires where he worked lifting drawers. He found out about a vacancy for a kitchen assistant at a grill that existed in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of La Paternal, and there he took his first steps. “I learned the job from below. I know what it’s like to patch and clean bathrooms,” Montiel recalled.
I learned the job from below. I know what it’s like to patch and clean bathrooms.
Roberto Montiel
Of American nationality, at the age of 18 he traveled to Miami. With the help of his father he opens a small pizza and pasta delivery. Meanwhile, he decides to study Medicine, but not for long, since a year later he abandons his degree to study gastronomy.
Montiel says that after that decision they sent him to a half-scholarship in Switzerland to work and study in a hotel-school. He worked eight hours to finance the paid part of the scholarship and took another eight hours in a row.
Plate by Roberto Montiel. Photo: Francisco Sánchez Valassina
Thus, little by little, he learned and gained more experience. She traveled to 15 countries cooking. He became executive chef of 5-star hotels. He met different personalities through his work catering presidential flights, including the Prince of Wales and the son of Japanese Emperor Hirohito.
Regarding the opportunities and difficulties he experienced, Montiel says that the most difficult thing was facing his own demands. However, his career opened more and more doors for him, including in the academic environment as career director at a school for hotel executive chefs in Medellín, Colombia.
Back in Buenos Aires, he taught classes at different cooking schools, was a food and beverage manager for important restaurant chains, and even had his own businesses. Later, due to those unforeseen events that sometimes happen in his life, he decides to move to Patagonia and starts working as executive chef at Hotel Casino del Río, in Cipolletti.
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Plate by Roberto Montiel. Photo by Francisco Sánchez Valassina
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Plate by Roberto Montiel. Photo by Francisco Sánchez Valassina
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Plate by Roberto Montiel. Photo by Francisco Sánchez Valassina
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Plate by Roberto Montiel. Photo by Francisco Sánchez Valassina
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Plate by Roberto Montiel. Photo by Francisco Sánchez Valassina
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Plate by Roberto Montiel. Photo by Francisco Sánchez Valassina
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Plate by Roberto Montiel. Photo by Francisco Sánchez Valassina
For four years he has been a chef at the Casa Blanca restaurant where he expresses, through his recipes, all his talent and history. The chef explains that his technique is codified cooking, which allows him to speak in a language of historical French cuisine. “I love signature and fusion cuisine. In my personal universe I always tried not to stray from the simplicity of the classic, but without ceasing to explore techniques and flavors from different cultures to apply them to my recipes.”
What does it take to be a chef?
Roberto Montiel believes that it is important for young people who are thinking about choosing a career in Cooking to keep in mind that to be a chef you do not study. It is a position that is earned, as is the case in all professions. “It is earned with work, recognition and time.” And he exemplified: “You study to be a teacher, not to be a high school director.”
He explained that being a chef is a technical title, but then the reality is different. “You have to go out to work and hopefully one day you will be a chef, at some point. Many say they are chefs for status, fashion, because it looks better and is well seen.”
Roberto Montiel. Photo by Francisco Sánchez Valassina
Regarding the human qualities to be a chef, Montiel responds in a surprising way. “The chef does not belong to the race of human beings. We are of a different race and that must be taken into account when choosing a profession. You don’t sleep and you work a lot. In four hours of service you have to go through all the feelings that one experiences at different moments in life: pain, frustration, happiness, anger.”
Montiel leaves aside the romanticism of the profession and warns about the day-to-day work of the chef. “There is no Mother’s Day, birthdays, or Christmas. Within that scenario, the chef must guide his team, remain innocuous to all types of feelings and carry out the service.”
Roberto Montiel’s advice to stand out as a chef
“I would tell them, without being presumptuous, to try to explore and renew the recipes and culinary methods of different cuisines, listen to the advice of elders in their daily cooking, perpetuate the cultural and gastronomic legacy, as well as the methods of handling raw materials,” he advised.
Plate by Roberto Montiel. Photo by Francisco Sánchez Valassina
In addition, He placed great emphasis on avoiding fads. “Fashion dies young” he stressed.
He added that a chef is not only cooking, he is also salon service. “Many forget that when they travel the culinary path. They should know that a diner at the beginning of a meal is when he usually really discovers the cook.”
Furthermore, he revealed a mental motto that he always keeps in mind: “With a clear conscience and a delicious hint of irreverence, he distills judicious and relevant cuisine.”
Roberto Montiel’s secrets: how to cook like a professional chef?
An open secret, according to Roberto Montiel, is to ensure that a menu is a balanced sequence between unpredictable proposals along with predictable ones. “The probable ends up being as decompensating as the surprising.”
Plate by Roberto Montiel. Photo by Maria Barbeito
From an empirical point of view, the chef explains that you have to create your own style and compose your own songs. “From the appetizing pentagram of our invention, try to rediscover sensations, recover memories that appear and try to make our emotions attend the glorious kitchen of our own.”
The absolute priority should be flavor
Roberto Montiel
Montiel emphasizes that “the absolute priority must be flavor.” The rest of the variables, such as technique, plating and aesthetics, are means, not ends. “You have to mark the flavors while being faithful to the original flavor.”
On a practical level, the importance of the work group and its unity stands out. “A homogeneous, trained group, with clear goals, is capable of performing any feat and walking the path to success.”