He looks like a rock star and has a way with women. He smokes. And he says, he likes “fiesta, party. Party, fiesta.”
That doesn’t make Iñaki Aizpitarte too different from most high profile chefs apart from the fact he doesn’t have much time for the ones on TV. But what does make the difference is his new approach to cooking and ingredients. This Basque-born self confessed natural cook takes what most people would chuck into the bin without thought and turn it into something spectacular on the plate.
His style of seasonal cooking is dubbed bistronomics, charging bistro prices for high end fare. What he saves in money by using cheap ingredients and leftovers, he puts into expensive ingredients such as diver caught scallops or foie gras.
Because of this approach his restaurant Le Châteaubriand in Paris’ 11th Arrondissement was named the breakthrough restaurant in the list of the World’s Top 50 restaurants in 2008. And restaurant critic Terry Durack describes the restaurant’s Euro14 ($26) set lunch as the best value in Europe. Quite a call.
But the reality is that costing about Euros 40 ($75) for a five course meal in the evenings, Le Chateaubriand represents astonishing value compared other high end restaurants.
Aizpitarte’s change from traveller to chef came when in Israel just eight years ago. When he was about to leave dishwashing for a gardening job he was asked to cook in a restaurant. That was at the age of 27 and four years later he moved to Paris working as a chef and experimenting with his self taught technique.
A year later he moved into Le Châteaubriand a restaurant that had been operating since 1930s, and where little in the decor has changed. He didn’t take any classes and has never been formally trained. He turned to the classic books such as the doorstep-sized Larousse Gastronomy and books on ingredients.
He says, through a translator, that he learned fast because he was really motivated. ‘We could say I was an autodidactic, a natural.”
In Melbourne recently for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival and cooking at local chef Andrew McConnell’s Cutler & Co, he demonstrated his technique. A video backed by a White Stripes soundtrack -The hardest button to button – introduced Aizpitarte’s local gig.
A simple apple seed tasting of almonds, was served as amuse bouche. He described how cheap products such as blood and backstrap pork, his spin on boudin noir, with apple on the inside rather than a garnish, make a terrine that is trimmed and styled with creamed potato as chocolate cake (see recipe).
The trimmings are reconstituted into balls of blood rolled in cocoa, blood truffles if you will. The disgusting alien-like insides from squid which every chef chucks out are made into a bouillon – stock – and risotto using the black rice Venere from Italy.
While Aizpitarte experiments with recipes and techniques he admits that sometimes he still makes mistakes although they stay in the kitchen. He says he is still learning, like most cooks. “The beautiful part of it is that there are a lot of things to continue to learn.
And there will be more and more. To be honest it is how every cook should think.” What is important for him is that his food is honest and reflects his personality.
“The more I take pleasure the more I am able to give pleasure,” he says.
Recipe: Boudin Noir
2 l pig’s blood (available from good butchers. Pre-order.)
1 kg hard back fat pork, diced
40 g garlic chopped
800 g onion fine dice
100 g apple ½ cm dice
300 ml red wine
300 ml cream
Preheat oven to 160C.
Gently heat the onion in a pan until they are translucent. Add the back fat and garlic, heat for a further few minutes and finally add the apple.
Continue heating this until it forms a paste like consistency, about 20 minutes. Add the red wine and bring to a boil, simmer gently for about 5 minutes, then add the blood and cream. Gently warm the stir until it reaches 55 degrees, remove from the heat, puree in a liquidiser and strain through a fine sieve.
Pour the blood mixture into a deep tray or terrine and place in a water bath in an oven preheated to 160C.
When the mixture has set, taking about six minutes or so, remove from the oven and water bath immediately and cool overnight in the fridge. The following day turn out the boudin noir and trim the edges. Slice the boudin noir into rectangles and trim. Warm gently in the oven.
Best eaten straight from the oven.