BARCELONA: Two days after ABAC had clinched three Michelin stars, Pablo Sacerdotte, the maitre d’ of the restaurant had already quit. “We got the three Michelin stars on 23 November and on 25 November I quit. It was the end of the journey for me,” the Argentinian told Food and Wine Gazette.
He had decided that the world of fine dining was over for him, tired of working seven days a week. “It is difficult to create new things when you are open seven days a week and you are constantly trying to train people,” he tells me.
What lured him back to the world of fine dining and three Michelin stars was happiness. He realised that for him to be able to work again in such an environment he needed to first be happy in his job, happy in what he did and happy in his family life.
He found all that at Cocina Hermanos Torres where he helped clinch three Michelin stars in record time. “At Cocina Hermanos Torres we offer happiness but to offer happiness you need to be happy.”
Happiness might sound like a cliche but it is certainly a determining factor for Pablo. Wearing sneakers and feeling comfortable may sound obvious but its not always the case in restaurants particularly three Michelin star ones. “When you are walking 20 kilometres a day in the restaurant you need to feel comfortable. We are offering happiness to our guests and to do that we need to be happy. We are not top models or lawyers needing to wear formal shoes,” he says.
There were also other factors like work-life balance which came into play. Pablo had sacrificed his personal life and seeing the first years of his oldest daughter in the pursuit of three Michelin stars. “I asked myself, really what am I doing. Because you miss the moments when she walked for the first time or her smile. And even when I was at home, I was tired,” he tells me.
Twin brothers Javier and Sergio Torres were the ones who managed to convince him to get out of his ‘comfort’ zone again.
Being happy has been his mantra since he has been working at Cocina Hermanos Torres because without that nothing matters. “We all have our pressures, we are all looking for big things but this must not come at the cost of happy staff, a happy life or a happy family. Of course you cannot always be happy but I believe in what I am doing and what we are doing. If our mantra is to make people happy we need to be happy first. If not you are lying and a good lie might survive some guests who might not notice but how many times can you lie to your staff. But if there is that feeling among staff that you are happy and it is real, then it translates into happiness. I had a phrase I coined which is “Thanks for your Magic”, It might not translate well into English but I always use the phrase because to be happy we need to have this magical service that works,” he says.
He proudly tells me that he had Joan Roca as a guest and asked him for feedback. “He told me Pablo, I don’t know what you are looking for but I can tell you something, it looks like this restaurant has been open for 10 years and not just one and a half years because everything is so fluid and runs smoothly.”
“At the moment, it is a challenging time for the industry. It is a challenge to find staff in the kitchens but for service it is even harder. There are not many managers who are rocks stars like chefs. Today chefs are the new rocks stars and people want to take photos with chefs but it wasn’t like that 25 years ago,” he said.
Pablo told me that before el Bulli, people did not really go back to a restaurant because of the chef but rather they went back because of the service or because they enjoyed their time in the restaurant. “Today, we are trying to change this again. We try to sell happiness and not technique. This is the happiest moment in my career because I really believe in what I am doing. As a restaurant we might not be the best in protocols, maybe we are not the most polite people you will find but maybe we are the happiest people working in a restaurant and I believe this is extremely important.”
Cocina Hermanos Torres is a special restaurant because everything is transparent. The kitchen is the centre of the restaurant and tables are all around the kitchen. “The main idea of the restaurant is crazy,” he said.
What may have been avant garde in the past is not avant garde today and Pablo stresses that for him timing is what is crucial. “You will not be eating at the restaurant for five hours. For us avant-garde is making guests comfortable and not spending too much time in the restaurant. If you want to spend time, then it is fine, you can drink or eat more but the idea is to try and create a good moment for you in two and a half hours. 35 course menus is no longer avant-garde. Maybe it was in 2000 at the time of el Bulli but things are different now,’ he says.
What is avant-garde for them is rather their casual approach to service. “We try to create an atmosphere with our sneakers, with the lack of ties for staff. We can offer different things to what was done in the past and maybe for us that is avant-garde,” he said.
To understand what makes Pablo tick you need to look at his past and it is in his diverse past that you can find the secret to his success. One can easily define Pablo as curious. He has worked in various fields from discotheques to being a bartender before moving to Mexico and living there. He tried to study law, management but wanted to follow his passion – wine. He met his now wife on his first trip to Europe in 2007 and it was there that he decided to return back to Argentina and work in the wine business. He was a director in a restaurant, worked with a wine company and met different sommeliers and decided to study as a sommelier in Argentina’s main wine region Mendoza. In Argentina he was used to living from one crisis to another and while the wine industry was interesting it was limited.
The choice fell on Barcelona and it was there that he started his career that led to his incredible achievements. “I started as an intern sommelier in a restaurant and within six months I was managing the restaurant.”
He then moved to ABAC where he worked for 7 years and pursued the third Michelin star. “It was interesting to see that if you follow a certain approach you can reach your goals but it was not the same. The restaurant was open seven days a week. There was no time to think,” he says.
He knew that team work was essential. “What I am doing now is working with a team and trying to be the best leader because no one gets stars alone. Except Jiro,” he says with a smile.
After his experience in fine dining, he decided his future was outside the world of fine dining. But a meeting with the Torres brothers who had this restaurant and concept and were looking to add knowledge to the restaurant changed everything.
He believed in their project and in the fact that this restaurant was really special. “If you create a good concept and you believe in what you do and guests are happy then the third star is just the last building block. “We were working a lot for this in ABAC and also here at Cocina Torres.”
Pablo knows that what he has helped create at Cocina Torres is incredible. The restaurant has only been open since July 2018 and was closed for over a year because of the pandemic. So it has gotten three Michelin stars in three and a half years which is nothing short of incredible.
He tries to get inspiration from reading or from colleagues in other places in Spain like El Cellar de Can Roca or Lasarte. “There are a lot of amazing maitre d’ in Spain and we need to create new idols in this field as well because it is essential to attract talent.”
He follows Will Guidara and believes that the quote Make it Nice is one of the best phrases to come out of this business because make it nice means make it easy and make it nice does not necessarily mean make it excellent.
There is something that strikes me in our conversation. He told me that there aren’t many protocols in the restaurant. I am intrigued. “Of course we have rules otherwise it would be an anarchy and that would not work. But the concept of this restaurant is crazily easy. From where I am sitting now in my office I can see that a guest has asked for the bill, I can see how many tables are left. If I see a colleague running, it means that they need help. It is therefore intuitive but this instinct comes from the fact that the restaurant is perfectly designed. It is completely different to a typical restaurant with a kitchen and a dining room. Here we are naked in front of people so we are forced to be smooth and not rush things. This is our way of being polite. We can make mistakes but in fact it is a bit easier than other restaurants because we cannot make big mistakes as these are instantly visible to everyone,” he said.
“I was looking for a big challenge but not an impossible one. A challenge were I believe I could be happy. A place where people can grow. Now that we have clinched three stars we have other goals like building a new wine list with a new wine cellar. We can work to grow the business.”
He knows as a manager that he needs to offer people the possibility to grow within the company. “We follow the talent. We need to keep the carrots dangling because without them people will leave. And you need to understand that every person wants different types of carrots. Some are there for the money, some for the knowledge, some to learn, some to become leaders, some to be able to create a wine list with someone else’s money. As a leader you need to understand what drives people otherwise you will soon be alone,” he says.
Pablo is now focusing on helping grow the business. It is another way for the team to grow and keep everyone happy. That, to date, has been a winning formula.
Photos of Pablo Sacerdotte by David Egui
Read also: Good and better things are coming – the Torres twins behind Cocina Hermanos Torres
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