A clear sky and the Río de la Plata – dotted with fishermen on the pier and kite surfers in the waves – is the setting for this late Friday lunch at Olive Tree Counter. He ate corn pie in rye dough, and he served me the catch of the day: grilled hake with cabutia and blue cheese; carrots with tartar; and heirloom tomatoes. To drink, an exquisite kale lemonade and another hibiscus lemonade. There is no menu: when you enter you see the blackboard that announces the proteins; and the garnishes are chosen with the eyes: they are displayed in the inn. Fernando Trocca He arrives happy at the meeting with NEWS: “At this point in my life, the projects I do, I do to have a good time,” he says.
More than 40 years have passed since he moved to Bariloche at 18 to study gastronomy. He learned with Gato Dumas and Francis Mallmann, but not in their classrooms: in their kitchens. “I trained by working, which for me is the best way to train as a chef. The practice that a restaurant gives you is not given to you by school,” he maintains. He opened his own when he was 25 and then went to New York to be a chef. With many kilometers and stoves traveled, he returned to Buenos Aires to found Sucre. He spent two decades on TV (15 years on elGourmet) and published four books. At 59 years old, the renowned chef is at the climax of his career, with the recent opening of his most personal restaurant: Trocca.
News: How many restaurants are you in now? If I didn’t count them wrong, there are 9!
Fernando Trocca: Until recently yes. Two in Buenos Aires, two in Uruguay, three in the United States, one in Dubai and another in London, but since I decided not to base myself in England anymore and settle back in Buenos Aires, I separated myself from the last two. So now there are seven: 5 counters, Orilla Miami and Trocca.
News: Let’s talk about what we are in now, what is the best time to come to Mostrador Olivos?
Trocca: I like it better during the day, now the high season for Mostrador begins. This is the best time, you can sit outside. This is when the concept shines the most. Counter is a simple place, with fresh food on display. People come up, look at the vegetable and salad options we make, we serve them with a protein that we change daily. The same for the sweet. We are very focused on pastry, we have a great team of pastry chefs. In Uruguay we make 50 varieties of sweets per day.
News: That’s where the first Mostrador was born, right?
Trocca: Yes, the first was Mostrador Santa Teresita by José Ignacio. A seasonal restaurant, a block and a half from the beach. We opened 11 years ago. The second was in the United States, also on the beach, inside a hotel in Montauk, 7 years ago. This one from Olivos is the third. The fourth was New York, there we are in Manhattan, in TriBeCa, in the middle of the city. And the most recent is at the José Ignacio winery, it is within the vineyards, in the countryside.
News: Do you come to Olivos often?
Trocca: I love coming, plus I live 5 minutes away. I really like the morning and also the end of the afternoon. The place is totally privileged, we are on the water.
News: What does he do when he comes?
Trocca: I get together with the head chef, we try, we adjust recipes, sometimes I come and just have a good time, I enjoy.
News: He is a Counter customer, let’s say…
Trocca: Exact.
News: Counter even has its own book!
Trocca: He has two. The first talks about the beginning, about José Ignacio, about the team. We released the other one last year, it has more recipes.
News: He published four books and made many TV shows. What facet of Trocca as a communicator do you prefer?
Trocca: Although I did 20 years of television, I don’t feel like a TV character. Today I can broadcast from my own networks, although I don’t do it as often as I did during the pandemic, you have to take care of it, it takes time.
News: Anything we don’t know about Fernando Trocca?
Trocca: What do I paint?
News: But he doesn’t consider himself a visual artist.
Trocca: (Laughs) No. I paint because I take it as therapy, I like it a lot, it frees me, it expands me, it takes me out of my work thoughts, it relaxes me, I’m not thinking about anything other than what is happening there.
News: It’s your meditation
Trocca: Exactly, I always took it that way, as a space where I am alone. I paint in my house.
News: He doesn’t feel like a culinary artist either…
Trocca: I don’t think that chefs are artists, I think we are more artisans than artists. I know that there are cooks or many people who think that cooks are artists, I consider that ours is a profession.
News: Who makes art then?
Trocca: I feel that artists are people who have something to say with their art, who tell something very powerful. They have the purpose of giving a message. It doesn’t seem to me that chefs transmit at that level, although it is true that cooking speaks a lot about each person.
News: Do you see gastronomy as closer to creation or nutrition?
Trocca: It has a bit of creation, some feeding, and sharing, which is the most beautiful thing for me. Create a moment, a situation. I always say that restaurants are like an extension of your home.
News: At the blacksmith’s house a wooden knife or at home in the kitchen?
Trocca: Yes, I cook, I live with my daughter, she also cooks. I love cooking at home. I really enjoy cooking for my friends and my children. There are also days when I don’t even feel like breaking an egg. What happens is that when you do all the services, you don’t cook at home because you’re not there.
News: What would you say to people who get frustrated because they don’t know how to cook?
Trocca: That anyone can do it. What can be learned. If you really like cooking, you learn, with technique, with flavor, with practice.
News: What is your mission as a chef?
Trocca: My duty, what interests me and what I want is for people to eat delicious food and leave happy, to have a nice experience at the restaurant. I relate my work to well-being.
News: Tell us about your latest opening, Trocca
Trocca: It was an idea from Martin Pittaluga, my partner and great friend. He told me: “I opened your place, alone.” And I did it. More than ever it is my home, it even has my name. It has to do with the moment in my life, I’m going to turn 60, I don’t want to forget what made me fall in love with cooking. I spent many years moving in one direction and this is a return to the most classic recipes. I’m not modern.
News: It is the kitchen of your life
Trocca: It’s a project that takes me back instead of forward, like a return to my roots. The tablecloth and plates with memories. I have a photo of my grandmother in the kitchen, on a small altar. She inspires me. Her cuisine was varied, we had relatives in Brazil and she made feijoada. When we went out to eat with my dad, I ate Maryland supreme, if I asked my grandmother Serafina to make it for me…she would reproduce it. The fried banana, the corn cream, the pie potatoes. He was self-taught.
News: Did she teach him how to cook?
Trocca: In some ways yes. I was very young, it’s not that he shared his recipes with me, he simply showed me how it was done. He taught me how to cook without giving me instructions, making me try it, bringing me a stool, making me stay inside the kitchen.
News: How do you feel when you open a restaurant?
Trocca: This time, by the way, I had to go back to my psychologist. At a time when young people talk about anxiety, I had not experienced it until now. But I felt strange in the last few months, so I saw him again, now he’s driving me.
News: What did the therapist tell you?
Trocca: If nothing was happening to you, that’s what I’d be worried about. “This is you, this is your name, you are making all the decisions.” In societies it was different, I consult everything. This is a small project, I don’t want to go crazy, I want people to have a good time and I have a good time with my team. Feed what I like to cook.
News: Like what I tried on the special Nieto en Movimiento night
Trocca: I served the risotto with osso buco, which is a dish that I have made for many years, my grandmother already made it. That event is great, and we take advantage of Mondays when the restaurant is closed to put together things like that. Nieto Senetiner is a winery with which we do a lot, I have a very good relationship with Santiago Mallorca, who is my friend and who makes very good wines. For this cycle we made a menu with a selection of dishes from the restaurant, friends from home came too, it was almost like an opening, a week after opening.
News: Is it true that your entire gastro adventure began with a job in the bathroom of a nightclub?
Trocca: Yes, I went to Bariloche to study cooking, because the only school there was was there. As soon as I arrived, I got a job, it was from 10 at night to 7 in the morning in Cerebro. I got to work while waiting for the school to open, and it never opened. It was a political question. “If you want to learn to cook, go to a restaurant,” the director told me. And that’s what I did. I started at La Tartine by Paul Azema, who was my first teacher. The truth is that I liked working much more than studying.
News: Today, when you go out to eat, where do you face?
Trocca: I go to the restaurants I like to go to, wherever they are. Like El Preferred, Don Julio, El Pobre Luis, Hong Kong Style.
By Carolina Cerimedo
Ig: @playrum
You may also be interested
by Carolina Cerimedo
