Gastón Acurio, Joan Roca and Nepalese chef Ngatemba Sherpa to be at the second Andorra Taste event

Andorra will once again bring together top international Spanish and Andorran chefs between September 13 and 17 to continue the work that started a year ago to raise the profile of high mountain cuisine all over the world as a bastion of authenticity, rooted in the region and with a bright future. This will be the second Andorra Taste event, which a year ago vindicated mountain cuisine as cuisine that wastes the least and makes the most of nature's resources. 

The International High Mountain Gastronomy Meeting, organised by Vocento Gastronomía - grup gsr and Andorra Tourism, also aims to highlight Andorra's gastronomy, its local products and its gastronomic influence. The second edition will once again be held in the parish of Escaldes-Engordany ( which is also a sponsor of Andorra Taste), and will once again have a large agenda of popular activities at Andorra Taste Popular, which will take place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and includes a special programme for children.

Award to Gastón Acurio

This second edition of Andorra Taste will acknowledge the professional career of one of the most important chefs in the history of gastronomy, the Peruvian Gastón Acurio, who takes over from Michael Bras as the patron of this cuisine where respect for and connection with nature prevails, a cuisine that respects the seasons and listens to the people who live in rural, sea and mountain areas. Gastón Acurio was the first chef to play a role in changing everything. He brought about the birth of social cuisine, which is viewed as a discipline in itself. Through his work, his speeches - particularly the one he gave in 2006 at the Universidad del Pacífico in Lima - his television programmes, the direct relationship models he set up between his restaurants and Andean producers and fishermen and shellfishermen, he has driven the Peruvian gastronomic revolution. Peru was the first country to talk about producers as product guarantors, about social responsibility, about cuisine as a tangible sign of progress, about the identity of the country's brand linked to its cuisine... Even before we knew of the existence of gastronomic tourism, it was launching a language into the world that presented it as a benchmark of what it would become. Today, Acurio Restaurantes operates ten brands (Astrid & Gastón, La Mar, Tanta, Panchita, Papachos, El Bodegón, Yakumanka, Chicha, Jaleo and Manco) and has extended its presence to Mexico City, Geneva, Barcelona and Dubai.

The presentations at the second Andorra Taste also include another by one of the greats of contemporary cuisine, Joan Roca (El Celler de Can Roca***, Girona). After Ferran Adrià's retirement, he took on the role of the standard bearer of Spanish cuisine. There is no one who is so respected by all his colleagues. A tireless worker, always humble, involved in far-reaching social projects, he is undoubtedly another of the world's most influential chefs. Family, land, food stripped bare, imagination and authenticity. That is how he understands cooking. No fads. Precision and consistency. Nothing sudden. In his teaching everything always flows in the right measure: tradition and avant-garde, harmony and audacity, fantasy and reason. Cuisine in which there are principles and values. Another of the presenters this year will be Paolo Casagrande (Lasarte***, Barcelona), an outstanding student of Martín Berasategui, a chef with a career marked by the depth of his commitment, consistency, perseverance, effort and passion for cooking.

Chef and sherpa

Cooking at altitudes of over 4,000 metres with few tools is an everyday occurrence for Ngatemba Sherpa. Nathi, as he is known at the base camps, lives in Kathmandu, cooks in extreme situations and has been working as a sherpa and cook since 1995 for the mountaineering expeditions that take on the various peaks of the Himalayas. 

He is the supreme authority at the base camps, the person who feeds and nourishes the mountaineers. He builds two large stone countertops under a tent and a “fridge” with a drum that he fills with shovelfuls of snow. Nathi uses this and a rudimentary pressure cooker and a few pots and pans to make tasty, balanced food, despite the complications of obtaining certain products at such a high altitude. He has cooked for dozens of nationalities and tries to adapt as much as possible. 

The Alps, the guest territory

This year the Alps will be the guest territory, featuring Sven Wassmer, chef at  Memories*** (Bad Ragaz, Switzerland) which was the fourth Swiss restaurant to be awarded three Michelin stars. It also has a green star. It is renowned for its use of local, seasonal produce, which has allowed it to forge close partnerships with farmers and producers in the region, thereby building a deep connection with the land. He will be joined by his wife Amanda Wassmer, head waitress and sommelier, who has worked in the best restaurants in Switzerland for more than 15 years. She was awarded Best Sommelier of Switzerland in 2017 and 2022. She is currently responsible for managing the beverage strategy at the Grand Resort Bad Raga, and she complements her husband Sven Wassmer's dishes perfectly at the Memories restaurant with passion and a sense of responsibility.

Rebecca Clopath (Biohof Taratsch, Lohn, Switzerland), a chef who believes deeply that you can only get the most out of the ingredients you use in a dish if you know their history, will also champion the cuisine of the Alps. So she learned how to run a farm and relies on local organic producers for those products she cannot produce herself. This chef chooses to cook in a way that preserves the authentic flavour of the food, so she likes to look for rare, unfamiliar vegetables, or even go out into the forest to look for moss, herbs and resin.  

The recovery of the territory and the return to his homeland are the reasons that led Michele Lazzarini to abandon a three-star hotel for an agritourism project in a microscopic mountain village in Val Seriana, Lombardy, Italy. A 15-minute drive from Gandellino, in the Bergamo Alps, in the small village of Oltressenda Alta, four friends who are determined to recover the territory have created Contrada Briccone, an agricultural recovery project linked to tourism, which Michele Lazzarini joined to provide a gastronomic experience based on mountain cuisine. From this remote location, Lazzarini is committed to recovering the cuisine of the surrounding area, intervening as little as possible in the dish and its impact on the landscape.

Authentic cuisine from the landscape

Edorta Lamo (Arrea*, Santa Cruz de Campezo, Álava, España) revolutionised San Sebastian by combining gastronomy and underground aesthetics. Now he does so in the mountains of Alava, in his family's home town, Santa Cruz de Campezo, vindicating his roots, a cuisine based around race, character, the countryside and hunting. Authentic cuisine from the landscape: trout, crab, roe deer, venison, local vegetables, bush fruits, herbs, mushrooms, truffles, lamb, wild boar, pigeons, partridges... Like Benito Gómez (Bardal** Ronda, Malaga), who champions the taste of inland Malaga in a project where, from the Serranía de Ronda, far from the gastronomic circuits and with cuisine as its only commitment, he has earned two Michelin stars and the acclaim of the critics. 

Also making a presentation at Andorra Taste 2023 will be Josetxo Souto and Ramón Aso, from Callizo L'Aínsa, Huesca, brothers-in-law and chefs who have highlighted the value of cuisine from the landscape in the Huesca Pyrenees. Their paths crossed at Casa Roman, the family home of their future wives. Their restaurant has become the ideal place to find the best produce from Sobrarbe and the Pyrenees. Joel Castanyé, chef at La Boscana* (Bellvís, Lleida, Spain), who grew up in a family that has always been dedicated to the restaurant business, also has a special sensitivity for the landscape of his homeland and its local producers. With the aim of promoting the agri-food sector around Lleida's main product, fruit, he has undertaken the “Lleida Fruit Project”, with the help of agricultural engineers, doctoral students, technicians and producers from the world of fruit. His goal is to focus on the surrounding landscape as the centrepiece of his gastronomic offer.

France will be represented by Pascal Borrell, chef at Le Fanal (Banyuls-sur-Mer, in French Catalonia). Borrell, who has worked with chefs such as Jean-François Lemercier, Alain Passard and Jean Bardet, creates cuisine that is faithful to his region and based on traditional Catalan and Mediterranean cuisine.

David Gil (R+Desserts (Barcelona), head of a gastronomic research centre dedicated to the world of confectionery, will talk about the influence of the mountains on pastry-making. Winner of the 2015 Best Chocolatier of Spain Award and the 2019 National Gastronomic Confectionery Award, for the last eight years he has run La Dolça, the dessert and pastry team of Albert Adrià's elBarri Group.

Wine tasting of wines produced at altitude

Wine will also be an important part of the second Andorra Taste, with a tasting of high quality wines led by Ferran Centelles, former sommelier at elBulli, where he was responsible for the wine list for 13 years, and co-founder of Wineissocial and Outlook Wine. He is a national and international leader in the world of sommeliers and one of the most influential voices in the sector. 

The attendance of chefs based in Andorra will once again be important. Paco Méndez, the chef at TOC Anyós Park, La Massana, Andorra, is one of the best-known faces of Mexican cuisine in Spain. He trained with names such as Koldo Royo and Juan Mari Arzak before returning home. But the possibility of a stage at elBulli came up and that changed everything, meaning he finally ended up in Barcelona, collaborating with Albert Adrià. Marc Gascons, who runs Els Tinars* (Llagostera, Girona), with the help of Juan Jiménez (corporate chef at Serras Collection, Soldeu), brings the concept of local cuisine from the Catalan coast to the Andorran mountains at the Bruna restaurant (Soldeu). And Albert Ventura, who has replicated his Barcelona Coure in Andorra la Vella with Coure Andorra, has managed to strike a balance between impeccable product and creativity with no gimmicks. 

The Andorran chefs will include José Antonio Guillermo & Antonio Muñoz who run Odetti Bistro (Escaldes-Engordany, Andorra), a product-based restaurant with contemporary cuisine, and Roger Biosca, from the restaurant Hotel de l’Isard (Andorra la Vella) and Marc Mora, from És Andorra del Park Hotel (Andorra la Vella).

High altitude producers

There will also be producers who will talk about products produced at altitude at another of the round tables, such as Jordi Planes, from Embotits Cal Jordi (Ransol, Andorra), an artisan food producer of traditional sausages from Andorra and the Pyrenees. A charcuterie and pork butcher since 1990, he has always been linked to artisan production, following the family tradition and using recipes that have been handed down from father to son. He continues to work on 'bull' (a type of Catalan sausage) at an altitude of 1,700 metres - just as his grandfather did - to ensure that it retains its unique, natural taste, in Ransol, in the Andorran parish of Canillo. 

Casa Raubert, Andorra's leading cheese brand, will also be there, and Pablo Urcelay is its master cheesemaker. Since its origins, in the 16th century, Casa Raubert has been a traditional manor house, dedicated to livestock farming, agriculture, the sale of livestock and shepherding. Nowadays, it has become the only cheese factory in Andorra that produces artisan products. And Cristina Tor, co-owner of Casa Auvinyà (Auvinyà, Sant Julià de Lòria, Andorra), one of the five wineries in Andorra that strive every day to maintain the high altitude wines, will also be present. 

The journalist, writer, lecturer and analyst of trends and new concepts in tourism, Fernando Gallardo, a regular speaker at congresses, conventions and seminars on hospitality and tourism in Spain, Portugal and Latin America, will discuss the impact and importance of gastronomic tourism up in the mountains at a round table. He has visited more than 26,000 hotels in 103 countries during his 39 years of professional practice. Also there will be Àlex Orúe, Hospitality & Corporate Business Director of Grandvalira-Soldeu (Soldeu, Andorra) and Nandu Jubany, businessman and chef at Diamant (Andorra la Vella) and Hincha (Escaldes-Engordany). He turned Can Jubany, his parent company, into a hotel group that combines different restaurants and projects, with Jubany Events being the star business line with which he organises an average of 150 banquets per season. He also has premises in Ibiza, Formentera, Singapore...

Unique lunches and dinners 

In addition to the professional sessions, popular activities, cooking show sessions and children's sessions, Andorra Taste will also be the setting for a series of unique and original gastronomic activities, with four-, six- and eight-handed lunches and dinners prepared jointly by local chefs and several of the international chefs taking part at the event.

The event will be held in person in Andorra for professionals from the sector and specialist press, but it can also be followed online via the digital platform, meaning that the Principality's enormous potential can be viewed from anywhere in the world.