The heart of Âme restaurant It’s the refrigerator where the ducks are hung. It is at the back of the kitchen, illuminated, with shiny and appetizing bodies, in three rows. It’s a whim, it’s a necessity, “the darling of the house,” they say.
The two partners, Pachi Rodríguez and Joey Attiehthey love ducks, although Âme means soul. Because this is a French restaurant crossed with other worlds: Pachi is Venezuelan of an American mother, with Irish blood and a father with a love for things Basque, and Joey is Lebanese and they met in a master’s degree at the Sant Pol de Mar school and continued learning at Moments and one continued through Switzerland and the other through the US.
A restaurant is the sum of the experiences of its cooks, although not alone. Nationalities are procedures. They speak to each other in English because it was the language of that master’s degree.
Cozy place where they have recovered the stone walls hidden by those decorators who love plasterboard. I give up the table and settle at the bar, with my nose stuck in the kitchen, with my silent ducks in front of me and the tingling of Pachi and Joey.
They are both cooks, but Joey has chosen management, also the owner of Albe, restaurant that is not exactly Lebanese either but is still Lebanese, where Pachi has cooked until the opening of Âme. French and Lebanese establishments are scarce in Barcelona.
I ask Pachi the reason for the patera flock and the answer is an initiation trip to Paris when he was still a chemist in Venezuela: that ‘cassoulet’ changed everything. He realized that with cooking he did not give up chemistry (“the scientific cannot be removed”) and he could perpetuate “the happy moment” beyond the weekend.
I warm up with him consommé and a few drops of ‘garum’ seterooyster mushroom and fuagras oil (duck!): soup is good heating. Without leaving the world humid, the ‘gyrgola’ by Bolet Ben Fet‘gelée’ of herbs, cashews and fuagras (duck!).
He shows his face ‘hamachi’, lemon fish, imported from Japan, with vierge sauce, without the red color because they have clarified the tomato. The scallop is also from the island, with salsify and mollusk and citrus oil. “We have fifteen suppliers,” they explain. Although, is it necessary for the ingredients to travel so much?
The trouta piece of about 2.5 kilos, beautiful, that Pachi shows me, makes a leap with fewer kilometers, from the Pyrenees: filleted, cured and cooked at a low temperature, with roe, a ‘beurre blanc’ and fig leaf oil. I see France, yes, I see Japan, yes, but above all I see a chef with personality, something that is in short supply.
From Joey’s selection of wines that pass through the bar, I give my preferences: the wine orange Ulterior 2021 and the Casta Diva muscat 2021which accompanies the date and salted caramel pudding, superb.
And the ‘pateria’? Of the Aylesbury breed, from 5 Aglans, in the Llucanésfed the last week with acorn paste.
At Âme they keep them in the chamber for three weeks, around 2.5 degrees. Quack-quack. Bomba rice appears, with broth from the carcasses (too powerful) and a thigh confit who deserves to be a soloist.
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He comes on stage ‘magret’, with beet and chardperfect cooking and texture. “It’s just that I massage them”says Pachi. That? “Yes, he skewers them and massages them in the pan to remove excess fat.” She learned it with Ryan Ratinoin Washington, and I understand the effectiveness of therapeutic treatment.
The ending is surprising because it is under discussion: when is the time to serve the bread? Some time ago it stopped being a companion, now with a dish entity. They put it on the table before the meat and rice, but in my session they try as farewell. And I enjoy it without measure and I bite the I eat and spread the marrow butter and foagras with cocoa. Duck!
The team
Pachi Rodríguez, Joey Attieh, Belén Casas and Juan Longo.