Roland Trettl meets Alvin Leung

Roland Trettl meets Xavier Pellicer

Roland Trettl in Spain

Of course, the news came as quite a shock. I’d been trying for years to lure the great Catalan three-star chef Santi Santamaria to Hangar-7. Something always got in the way, but then, at last, it worked out. October 2011 was to be “our” month, and I’d planned to make my first visit to Sant Celoni, almost 50 kilometres northeast of Barcelona, in May. When it was announced that Santi Santamaria had died of a heart attack at the age of just 53 while visiting his restaurant “Santi” in Singapore in mid-February, the global gourmet community was devastated.

In my case, a general sense of grief was also combined with a feeling of total helplessness. How best to respond to this kind of news? Should I immediately shelve the guest chef concept or do the exact opposite, continue in a defiant gesture in honour of the great culinary artist? Luckily, it was none other than “Can Fabes” partner and Santi’s long-time kitchen buddy, Xavier Pellicer, who proffered me a solution issued from the heart: “We have to carry on and simply behave as though Santi is still with us,” he said. And that’s why he’s continuing along the path they embarked upon together with the utmost dedication. Of course, in the light of these sad circumstances, fabled dishes mutate into manifestos and legacies. Which gourmet, when he hears the names Santamaria and “Can Fabes”, does not immediately think of that unbelievably tender steamed neck of pork, resting on a bed of creamed potato, topped with caviar? Or Santi’s prawn ravioli stuffed with porcini?
Or bacalao tripe with salchichas and black pudding. What a contrast to the perfectionist, high-end aesthetic of molecular cuisine! Perhaps below average from a purely optical point of view, but nigh on unbeatable in terms of taste sensation – outstanding products, classic craftsmanship and a proud love for the region all helped the modest farmer’s son mature into one of the greatest chefs in Spain.

Santi was the first Catalan chef with three stars – for an autodidact, it doesn’t get any better than that. Or maybe it does? After all, just a few kilometres away, in Figueras, was “El Bulli”, the famous restaurant run by megastar Ferran Adrià – a chef also decorated with three stars, but as founder of a completely new kind of cuisine, in a league of his own. This molecular cuisine rubbed Santi up the wrong way; in fact, maybe it even wore him down. His polemic pamphlet “La Cocina al Desnudo” (The Kitchen Laid Bare) against molecular cuisine triggered an impassioned debate.

Santi’s highly premature death gives rise to many considerations. Is establishing so many branches – a route taken by an increasing number of top chefs – really the right way to go? Four restaurants in Spain, as well as subsidiaries in Dubai and Singapore – that must have been incredibly stressful for the baroque Santamaria. At this point in time there’s only one thing I know for sure: Grief at the death of one of the greatest practitioners of our craft is combined with unbridled joy at being able to pay homage to Santi Santamaria at Hangar-7 – a tribute that his outstanding cuisine has earned him following his time on this earth.