Quique Dacosta Restaurant

Do you know? This art is ruled by other codes, fits into another format, and other parameters also live in its execution. Nevertheless, it has its raison d’etre as an art for the same or similar purposes, searches, needs, inspirations, gazes, missions and energies. “What’s the difference between what you do and what I do?”, Manolo Valdés, in his New York studio, asked Quique Dacosta. “We both do the same thing, we’re after the same thing. Only the matter we work with and the format changes, and perhaps the senses through which you receive, perceive and enjoy the work”, concluded Valdés.

Food is eaten, at times it disappears. Is that why it’s an ephemeral art, perhaps like dance? There’s nothing more ephemeral than a line of dance that before ending has practically disappeared. Is it not art for this reason?

And if I leave the plate there, like so, just waiting for time to go by? Is it art if nobody eats it and it lasts over time? Is it art if it’s only gazed at, without tasting it? Or if it doesn’t have a physiological use… Vicente Todolí says in the documentary Cocinar Belleza that an art, to be art, shouldn’t have a use.

QUIQUE DACOSTA

I haven’t come to this point to proclaim that cooking is an art; or yes, I have.

It’s perhaps a trite and recurring discussion, to quite often underrate cuisine itself. However, gastronomy is the framework in which cuisine is cemented as one of the fine arts in this century.

We all know that not every painted canvas is art, nor that everyone who sings or dances is an artist. Likewise, not everything we eat is a work of art. Evidently. We’re talking about something else, in a different way and in other terms.

I find it fascinating when gazing at a painting to think about what the painter wanted to say, even to fantasize about what he was thinking while painting, who it was intended for and why he communicated in this way. Or not, maybe he didn't intend any of this... I know I’m here to communicate from my deepest and most natural language, which is cooking. And if art in some way seeks to create communication with others, making them meditate, reflect, move forward, feel uncomfortable, set themselves apart, create a style as the height of artistic expression, or simply to please, at our table a story is told made up of various works that are tasted physically, mentally and intellectually.

I love to see that there are arts in which the recipient uses only one sense, and through only this one sense these arts manage to excite us because they communicate so much. When contemplating a painting we “only” use our sight. With music, our hearing. With cinema, sight and hearing.  With cuisine it’s sight, smell, touch, hearing and, of course, taste. And with all of these is the imagination, the fantasy starring the person who perceives the work. Cuisine is a multi-sensory discipline to which is added emotional connotations and a journey towards ourselves, towards our own expectations. These turn the experience of sitting down at the table into active participation in the work that is presented and represented.

I know, this is about nourishment as well. But what I do has no nutritional purpose, although of course it nourishes, body and soul. This is our way of communicating.