Chef Ángel León, awarded with three Michelin stars in Aponiente (Cádiz, Spain) is added on to the list for the first time with the 94 spot on the ranking of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants that is announced on June 25th in Singapore and that now pre-released its 51-100 of the list.
Within the core pillars and foundation of Aponiente, one will find sustainability and the search of revolutionary seafood. The investigation about light, use of plankton for grastronomy, creation of marine sauages with the usage of species that were discarded until now by the fishing industry, and recent discoveries about salt; are just some of the many advancements in technique and creativity developed at Aponiente.
Aponiente differentiates themselves by offering a style of gastronomy based on the reinterepretation of seafead in the XXI century, an investigation about the seas, and its wide selection. This hard work has been recognized by The World´s 50 Best.
Aponiente is the first restaurant in Andalusia that has entered the world renowned list and places itself amongst the 13 best Spanish restaurants in the world according to The World´s 50 Best that are awarded by William Reed Business Media that took place last year in Bilbao.
On the 2018 list, of the 13 spanish restaurtants there are 7 Basques, 4 from Catalonia, 1 from Madrid, and 1 from the community of Valencia.
Ángel León
Chef of the Sea
Ángel León is currently one of the most influential chefs with his innate talent that characterizes those who advance gastronomy forward and take it to not as thoroughly explored areas such as the sea. Ángel León has a discourse based on respect and fantasy that unifies with tradition and evolution in perfect symbiosis .
Being a vocational sailor, passionate about the sea and fishing, and knowledgable about nature especially fish, algaes, and salts; are all skills that help him to project the most intimate horizon in his cooking.
He is known for his international Gaditano sailor appearance and and for his avalanche of ideas from being a restless soul. Although he enjoys discovering important culinary techniques, he is obsessed with finding and exctracting species of the sea that others don´t want or can´t see. He does this so that he can offer new ingredients and undiscovered species to the the human race.
Ángel projects a certain feeling of romantic reverie in his culinary and marine ideals that can be translated into what we would call the ReCreation of seafood cooking of the XXI century. It’s a style of cooking involving bases and fumets of fire like those of an old achemist, where pots boil and where low bases are harmonized. It also involves the perfect balance of everyday techniques with cutting edge techniques of risk.
As a part of his commitment to the socialization and divulgation of his culinary style and his R+D projects that he has developed in the Restaurant Aponiente since 2007, he has given presentations in the most renowned national and international congresses of the industry as well as at other academic centers such as Harvard University and and The Culinary Institute of America in the United States. At the editorial level, as a part of his didactic activities he has participated in different publications highlighting his project, Chef of the Sea (Montagud Editors), and recorded multiple seasons of his own television series with the same name “The Chef of the Sea”.
R+D of the Sea
The Chef Ángel León discovers and investigates new ingredients that permit the guests to submerge themselves into the sea. For that reason, Ángel León and his team do not cease in their search and daily research to merge Cadiz tradition with innovation and new marine ingredients.
Plankton for Gastronomy 2009
He developed the Marine Plankton (“The origin of life”) as a new ingredient for the human race. He studied about different types of micro algaes and their different culinary qualities.
In 2014, The plankton of Ángel León, commercialized by the company Fitoplancton Marino, turned into the first novel food created by a Spaniard (new food authorized by the European Union for human consumption).
The seafood cold cuts 2010
He developed the Iberian Seafood Cold Cuts 100%, Iberian products such as pork sausage, Catalan sausage, Iberian spicy sausage, cured pork loin, Majorcan sausage… elaborated in their entirity with fish which until then was discarded by the commerical fishing industry.
Start of the project and discovery of the Bioluminiscence 2013-2017 (presented)
His contribution to bioluminiscence now allows any dry product to be added to any solid or liquid recipe that without changing the texture or aroma it permits the ability to serve recipes with marine light.
The chef and his team discovered that one enzyme, luciferase, and a protein, luciferin, were responsible for the bioluminescence of the sea. They were then applied to various species of edible phytoplankton, and once dried up, they created a powder capable of illuminating any soup or broth. It is a magical moment that the cook himself presented at the prestigious Harvard University.
A new way of understanding salt 2019
At Aponiente they have managed to saturate the seawater salt through a perfect crystalizing technique that can be done right in front of the restaurant guests. They manage to do this through a combination of salts which crystalize at an extreme temperature that when added to food it can cook it thoroughly while crystalizing. It is a magical and unbelievable sight.
This revolutionary formula for cooking food and that the Chef Ángel León presented in the last edition of Madrid Fusion 2019, is a combination of: Tablesalt, low soidum salt, calcium chloride, vinegar salt, and live salt.
The World’s 50 Best Restaurants
June 25th, 2019
The World’s 50 Best started a world tour in 2016, and in the last three years they have held ceremonies in New York, Australia and the Basque Country.
The year 2019 marks a histortic moment, now that it is the first year that award ceremony will be celebrated in an Asian city. For a long time now, Singapore has been considered a key city for gastronomy with restaurants such as Odette (No.28 on The World’s 50 Best 2018), Burnt Ends, Waku Ghin and Les Amis, as well as world acclaimed bars and famous street food areas.
In June of 2019, the city will host the best chefs in the world for a week long event of celebrations and unique gastronomic events.
On the 25th of June, they will reveal the complete list of the 1-50 group. Currently at the top of the list is Osteria Francescana by Chef Massimo Bottura, followed by El Celler de Can Roca by the Roca brothers and in third place is the restaurant Mirazur by Mauro Colagreco.
In addition, this year they will introduce a new system of voting. From now on, all of the restaurants that have been proclaimed “number 1 in the world” will be admitted to a program called the Best of the Best and they will no longer be elgible to appear in the annual ranking.
The British ranking is also preparing a new campaign launch: a platform where they will present the best destinations in the world for gastronomy tourism. It will not be a ranking, but a network of bars and restaurants principally grouped by geography.