At a time that seems to date back to prehistory, you had to rely on the singing accent of the famous Meïté or the rigor of the starred Joël Robuchon to see cooking on television. Today, while the show Top-Chef breaks audience records year after year, it is a young man with a thin Zorro moustache who arrived from the joyful bazaar of Bogota, Colombia, who embodies the good-naturedness on set. A columnist for the show Quotidien, here is chef Juan Arbelaez, who also has a whole bunch of other responsibilities. A former student of the famous Institut Cordon Bleu, conductor of several restaurants including the famous Plantxa and Yaya, the young man is the champion of a cuisine of the moment, where the flavors of the world and enthusiastic manners subtly infuse our good old traditions.
What kind of culinary environment did you grow up in in Colombia?
To be honest, I feel like I grew up in a great kitchen. In my house, we always loved to eat, and we always had a passion for produce. Chili pepper and lemon are certainly the foods that accompanied my entire youth. They are the basis of aji, a sauce that is found everywhere - it is similar to the chien sauce of Creole dishes. It is served with empanadas, or with rice or potatoes. We are extremely lucky in Colombia, too: where we live, the Andes mountain range is divided into three in such a way that we have all the possible thermal levels. As a result, questions of seasonality of products do not exist. On the Pacific side, I remember eating shellfish soups with peppers, oregano and powerful ginger, all simmering in fresh coconut milk that has just been extracted. There are also red bean dishes that, when cooked, soak up the rice that is served as an accompaniment. And then this famous ceviche with tomato sauce. Colombia is a very rich land, with different terroirs, which are full of sun. And then, in truth, you don't really know a fruit until you have tasted it in Colombia.
Is respect for the land something that matters there?
All of this is in danger. Like almost everywhere else in the world, I think we have suffered a lot from the excessive industrialization of our lands. Large chemical companies like Bayer and Monsanto have ravaged them in recent years with their pesticides, and little by little our know-how has started to disappear. But things are changing. Today, Colombians are protesting. They are in the streets. They are fighting in particular against the excess of imports into the country, which are stifling local producers. Our agriculture is in danger, but we are lucky to have young people who are fighting. This is essential.
Why did you absolutely have to learn to cook in France? What has always fascinated you about local cuisine?
French cuisine is based on an extraordinary technique. When you taste something very French, like a poultry jus for example, everything is crazy because there is a real know-how of extraction. In France, too, there is a tradition of passing things on. A whole bunch of great chefs have written books that are now reference guides for learning how to cook, like guides. That's why today the concepts of brunoise, julienne or bain-marie are known throughout the world. French cuisine is the origin of everything. I remember the first time I worked in a French restaurant kitchen, at Pierre Gagnaire's Balzac in Paris. It was as if I had suddenly landed at Disneyland. I was twenty years old, and I was amazed, nostrils filled and mouth filled. There was this incredible tuna, almost a hundred kilos, that had to be lifted by several people. It was also the first time I saw black garlic and bronze fennel. I was in a laboratory, and I took the opportunity to enrich my mental library of flavors as much as possible. In the restaurants where I worked before launching, I also learned to consider foods from a different angle, to think of new ways to cut them and mix them, to bring them to states never before seen. I learned creativity, and even with an onion.
So what did you do with your Colombian influences and your French training?
When you become a chef, it's all about finding your own originality, finding your own style, your signature. Obviously, I tried to draw on my roots to do that. I tried to combine the ingredients I grew up with and the French cooking technique I learned in Paris. I think this mix is a blessing. Today, I try to revive French cuisine, or to brighten it up. For example, I make duck à l'orange with a tamarind paste sauce, chili pepper and Colombian green pepper. It has the same slightly sweet and sour notes, very powerful in classic duck à l'orange, but with a really new flavor.
What is your vision of the world of cooking?
There is something hard in cooking. We talk about a "chef", a "brigade of cooks", and a "shot" to start the service. Cooking is almost military. For a long time, I thought that it was precisely this hardness, a discipline at all times, that could allow me to rise. I let myself be exploited, a lot, by those above. Today, things have changed. You need flexibility, kindness. That is what the future of cooking is based on. I am very close to my cooks, and I do not like being called "chef". That's Juan. Even in appearance, I am not really a chef. I cook in a t-shirt and jeans, to make cooking less complex. But, in truth, I do not think that it is the outfit that changes anything. It's a question of state of mind, of the energy that you give off. It's simple: you don't want to be shit in the kitchen. My warm side has to do with my origins. Colombia is a friendly country. When you get into an elevator and you come across a stranger, you necessarily greet them, whereas that's not the case in France. On a bus, in a bar, everyone talks to each other. When we eat, everyone shares the dishes, we serve ourselves in the middle of the table, and that bonds people, it connects them. It's a powerful notion. This form of openness played tricks on me a few times when I arrived in France. It was hard. Plus, I arrived in Paris in winter, and when it's cold outside, people are even colder. I ended up adapting. In truth, the Parisian is like an artichoke. It's hard on the outside, but when you reach the heart, it's always tender.
Seasonality of produce seems to be the main mantra of your cuisine. How do you proceed at a time when strawberries can be eaten in winter?
In France, we work exclusively with small producers who allow us to work throughout the seasons. In truth, we don't really ask ourselves any questions: when we call them, we ask them what they have in stock. We depend on their harvests, or the fishing of the moment. And my cards adapt. From this point of view, it's impossible to cheat. That's how it is. I still think that we can't force the earth to give us the things we want when we want them.
In this regard, you have been producing organic olive oil for several years now. What is the background to this story?
During the 2014 World Cup, there was a match between Colombia and Greece. I went to watch it in a bar with friends who, a few months earlier, had introduced me to the olive oil they were producing in Greece. Before the match started, we made a bet. If Colombia won, the guys would invite me to Greece. Of course, Colombia won, and we went to Greece. There, we formed a unique bond. I met their family who have been producing olive oil for eight generations. Together, we visited a magnificent organic plot and that's how we started producing our own olive oil!