“Yesterday I went to buy some Band-Aids and it took me an hour even though the distance between the car and the pharmacy was 10 meters. Sometimes it can get a little more difficult, but for me it’s a pleasure.” The first question from NEWS to Damian Betular it was about his fame. She didn’t have to finish her answer because as soon as the recorder was turned on and she said the first two sentences, a couple with three teenage children approached her and they asked her for a photo. He got up, made jokes, posed and went back to the interview.
News: We were just talking about this.
Damian Betular: Sometimes I can’t believe it. But I enjoy it a lot.
News: And this was television, right? Before, he was a well-known pastry chef, but on a small circuit.
Betular: Yeah. This is the unimaginable popularity that television gives you. And I say unimaginable because to this day it amazes me. I have the possibility of traveling to the provinces and in remote towns they know me because they watched MasterChef. And people open the door of their house for me and show me an enormous closeness that I find difficult to understand. But they do know me… on TV.
The last time Betular proved that his fame spread throughout the country was when he recorded “La ruta del vino de San Juan”, the program with which he premiered on screen in 2023 and which broadcasts a new episode every Saturday at midnight for telef. With this project he toured valleys to learn about high altitude wines and local gastronomy.
After a decade as executive chef of the Palacio Duhau – Park Hyatt Buenos Aires, at the beginning of 2022 he left his job to open his own pastry shop in the Villa Devoto neighborhood, Betular Patisserie. However, despite his 5-star track record, he insists that excellent products can be found anywhere.
Betular: I think adaptability is the most important thing. Being a pastry chef in the nation’s capital is a bit easier than anywhere else. But in San Juan I was with a lot of pastry chefs in each town I visited and I found incredible work. For me, that is a double merit because, in addition to cooking, they also have to take care of, for example, getting a certain supplier to arrive and bring them certain raw materials.
News: How do you become a 5 star pastry chef?
Betular: The high level was given to me by the hotel industry. But in my career it was not all like that. I had to make do with a broken mixer that had to be jammed with a wooden spoon. But that didn’t stop me from wanting. The quality was that I put all the passion into it, in respecting the raw material and in that the cakes, for example, came out when they had to come out. It is more comfortable to have everything there, but going to different places makes you grow a lot and it gives you resolution power, something that is very necessary and is not often there.
Betular was born in Dolores, Buenos Aires province. He attended a technical school in high school and laughs when he says that he has a degree in “Electromechanical Technician”. “Nothing to do, right?” He jokes. His decision to dedicate himself to gastronomy appeared when he was very young. He admired Osvaldo Gross and the first recipes he tried were the ones his mother wrote down in a notebook. When he was in fifth grade, he sat down in front of his parents and told them that he wanted to go to study in Buenos Aires: “In my school there were up to sixth grade and all my friends graduated a year earlier because they didn’t go to others. I wanted to go with them so I proposed to take all the last free subjects and I did so ”, he says.
His parents accompanied him. They looked for an apartment in the Federal Capital and at the age of 17 he moved. “Now I see the children of my friends who are as old as I was at the time and I can’t believe it. Also now I understand my mom in a lot of things because for years I worked at night. She would take me the 34 in Figueroa Alcorta, return at dawn and she would worry. I remember that time with a bit of nostalgia and I think it was the right path, ”she adds.
News: What did you imagine when you were a Gastronomy student?
Betular: Work in a 5-star hotel. My goal was that and also to travel. This profession takes away a lot from your family life because you are not present on the 24th, the 31st or on weekends. In the hotel industry you work for the other. That’s why when everything began to come true it was wonderful.
“TV is a beautiful gift, but I don’t know how long it will last,” he stresses. When Betular tells how he came to be on the screen, he answers that “through mutual friends” and gives Humberto Tortonese as an example, whom he defines as his great confidant. “He is very close to Marley and that’s how contacts were made,” he recalls.
The first time they called him was to do a casting. He had to show up to do a mock bake off. “Over time I realized that there were important people from Telefe there. We did a simulation of the reality show and the producers acted as participants. They started to cry, they shouted. They did all the worst that could happen on the show and I was really nervous. Luckily, those things never happened on the show,” he laughs.
In the conversation, Betular returns over and over again about the meaning that MasterChef Celebrity had in his media career. Not only was it an explosion in popularity on another level, but it also happened in the midst of the pandemic.
Betular: We had closed the hotel, we had to lay off more than 300 employees. It was very hard. Later I went back to work there, but everything was still closed. One day the phone rang with the proposal. I called Germán (Martitegui) and also spoke with Donato (De Santis) and Christophe (Krywonis). Thus began this madness that ended in recording three seasons, a rematch and a “Hands Up” for Paramount. Now everything is being prepared for the 2023 edition, but we still don’t know many details.
News: Did the language of television cost you?
Betular: At first a lot. I’m super laid back, but having so many cameras in front of me, having to study a routine and talk to participants who come up with anything was difficult. He was also next to great figures. But we were locked up and there was a moment when I began to forget that we were recording. In short, we were a group that only went from our houses to the studio so it meant a lot to be there. That’s where I started to enjoy. We got along very well and it showed. It may be silly, because it’s a TV show, but something very strong was generated and I think that’s something that happens in a kitchen.
Betular is grateful for the opportunities that life has presented him, but he says that he is very clear that he will never leave his profession. He wants his bakery to become a school: “There is a lot of talent in Argentina and not everyone can travel to see a pastry shop window in Paris. I want them to be able to see it here and that people can train here. When the Argentine works what he likes, he shines”, closes.
