Madrid Fusión 2004

[Bux]

I doubt seriously if Thomas Keller will be at Alimentaria. He turned down Madrid Fusion because he is opening a new restaurant in NY.

I wonder whether the opposite might not be true. I suspect NY restaurants get a lot more traffic from visiting Europeans and Keller may well be interested in getting more publicity in Europe. None of this is to suggest he's going to have trouble filling his restaurant in the near future or that he's not already well known in Europe.

[vserna]

Madrid Fusión got off to a flying start this morning: Spanish chefs demonstrating fish recipes (Hilario Arbelaitz, Aitor Elizegi, Joaquín Felipe and Carme Ruscalleda), a one-man show by Alain Llorca of Le Moulin de Mougins and the tribute to the great chefs of the 1970s (Frédy Girardet, Alain Senderens, Michel Roux, Gualtiero Marchesi, Juan Mari Arzak and Pedro Subijana).

One interesting fact this year is the number of great chefs, not just demonstrating their skills, but attending as 'students' with the other 500 colleagues. No small fry, from Santi Santamaria of Can Fabes (3 Michelin stars) to young American studs like Ken Oringer of Clio, in Boston, or Wylie Dufresne of WD-50, in NYC.

[Opson]

Hi victor I thought to take your advice and see h blumenthal at madrid fusion but when I phone they say me that he is not on the programme? But he is on their web.

[vserna]

Heston Blumenthal had a spectacular demonstration Tuesday evening, which I couldn't follow because I had less pleasant deadline pressures, but Nicholas Lander of the Financial Times attended and told me Heston was brilliant. So whoever told you he wasn't on the program must have been smoking funny cigarettes. Then again, the event was entirely sold out and they weren't letting anyone in.