From the market to the Salamanca district: the unknown Ecuadorian cuisine jumps to haute cuisine

Many foodies would almost certainly skate when answering the following question: How many Ecuadorian restaurants are there in Madrid? There are about 150 and yet the notoriety of Ecuadorian cuisine is far from that of other Latin American cuisines like the Mexican or the Peruvian -or more recently the Colombian through the starred restaurant Quimbaya-.

“To understand this, we must go back to the early 1990s, a time when Ecuadorians began to arrive in Spain en masse: Ecuadorians came to work in the hospitality industry blind and have continued to do so while, for example, Peruvians has formed and has ended up valuing its gastronomy & rdquor ;, explains the chef Miguel Angel Mendez.

He was one of those who, along with his family, arrived in Spain 25 years ago, from the Ecuadorian city of Ambato. In 2007 he opened a small restaurant in the Mostenses Market (Madrid). It now has two premises, one with a grill where it prepares take-away orders and also the dishes it serves in the other, which is larger and has tables where diners sit to eat recipes such as fish soup with onions -a tuna stew in broth with cassava, a kind of Ecuadorian-style marmitako- or the guatitafirst cousin of our tripe in which a playful sauce based on peanuts makes the difference.

“When I started there was no one and now look & rdquor ;, he comments while taking some braised plantains from the grill and pointing towards the dozen Latin or Asian restaurants that populate the second floor of the Madrid market.

your restaurant, Miguel Angel Mendez Fusion, bears his name. That is also the one of her son, who appears on the scene to greet his father, his “sensei & rdquor; as he calls it, his mentor in the kitchen, a family training that he completed at the Gasma cooking school. Miguel Ángel Méndez Jr. is also a cook, he is 25 years old and represents the first generation of Ecuadorians born in Spain -although in his case, he arrived in Madrid with just six months to live-. Tattooed, with dilations in both ears, wearing a jacket from The North Face… he could pass for a member of the ‘crew’ of any urban artist, but his “paranoia & rdquor ;, as he himself says, is gastronomy.

Together with his father, he has created a project outside the market, born in the midst of a pandemic, which responds to the name of Ayawaskha. It is ecuadorian cuisine, yes, like his family, but evolved and focused on connecting with a new generation. The premises are located at number 40 Calle del Duque de Sesto, a few meters from Goya, in the Salamanca district. An important leap: from one of the humblest markets in the center to the noble area of ​​Madrid.

Pre-Columbian iconography, ‘sneakers’ and colored ceviches

When one enters the Ayawaskha restaurant It can make you think that you are in a cultural center. There are murals with pre-Columbian Ecuadorian motifs, photographs of cumbia musicians, exhibitions of typical products… Even when he goes upstairs and sits at one of the tables, the first thing they give him is not an appetizer, but a mortar, a sample of Ecuadorian textile crafts and some ‘graffitied’ Nike Air Force. It is the connection between yesterday and today, a constant game in this restaurant, in which the members of the team wear uniforms designed by the very modern Madrid brand Látigo but, yes, inspired by motifs inspired by the iconography of ancient Ecuador.

In food there is also a desire to evolve, to take the step of dried chicken, ceviches and grilled steaks that can be tried in Mostenses towards something new and evolved, an updated way of presenting Ecuadorian cuisine. “When we set out to open Ayawaskhawe thought of recovering the cuisine of our country and adapting it to the new reality. Our proposal involves talking about ourselves, about our history, but from another point of view. We are also connecting with the powerful gastronomic movement that is moving in Ecuador to tell those chefs that we are here and that we want to be their point of reference in Europe so that what is happening there is known & rdquor ;, says Miguel Ángel Méndez Jr.

The dishes of AyawaskhaIndeed, they look different from those of the mother house. He is tremendous Jipijapa ceviche, based on sea bass, tiger’s milk with peanut, minced criolla, cucumber and banana ‘chips’ (‘chifles’). The ‘bolones’ “de verde”, male plantain croquettes, stuffed with caramelized pork, are accompanied by a fried egg and tree tomato sauce with a spicy point of an impossible pink color. The visual impact is taken care of to the millimeter but without neglecting the flavor. The dishes are enriched with new nuances, flavors and textures. It is interesting to compare the versions of the original restaurant of Mostenses and compare them with these.

Against food waste and for dialogue between young people

Ayawaskha It is also a reflection of the restless personality of Miguel Ángel Méndez Jr. “Spain is the country that generates the most waste according to the FAO, so we have a project called ‘HAMBRE’ in which we recover the bananas or avocados that nobody wants for aesthetic reasons or the coffee that is discarded. From these supposed organic waste we prepare banana vinegar, for example, which we use in ceviche. We freeze avocados for different preparations & rdquor ;, explains the young chef.

The restaurant also serves meeting point for talks between artists from different disciplines through initiatives such as ‘PALIKE’: “We believe that young people need to listen to each other and that these meeting spaces are generated and that is why we put our grain of sand & rdquor ;.

An oven that does up to 22 different cooking

Ayawaskha it looks, without a doubt, towards the front, but also towards the Ecuadorian roots and traditions. The next objective of the Méndez is to get hold of a Manabí oventhe province of their country that most inspires them.

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“It is a kind of box that works like a wood oven and in which up to 22 different types of cooking can be carried out. it’s crazy&rdquor ;, comments Méndez Jr. Once that Manabi oven is in the restaurant, the circle back and forth is complete.

“What we are promoting here is a process of Empowerment of Ecuadorians in Spain regarding their gastronomic culture. We have to reflect what is happening across the pond. There they are beginning to see gastronomy as a cultural engine and in recent years very interesting figures have emerged in the field of cuisine. We are not going to have a Gastón Acurio as has happened in Peru, we will have to find our own path”, sentences the youngest of the Méndez, who says goodbye saying “I do not want to be Dabiz Muñoz, what I want is to sow to harvest”. A different route for the next gastronomy to discover.