ÁNGEL LEÓN OPENS THE MADRID FUSION TALKS BY ANNOUNCING A MAJOR CHANGE IN APONIENTE FOR 2025: THE IMMERSION OF THE EXPERIENCE IN THE MARSHES OF THE BAY OF CADIZ
The chef shared his personal reflections and his ‘notebook’ with the ideas he is working on for this year.
Madrid, 27 January 2025 – The highly regarded ‘chef of the sea’, Ángel León, opened the talks of the 23rd edition of Madrid Fusion, the most influential gastronomic congress in the world, with a presentation full of personal reflections, notes with ideas and techniques he is working on and his new dream, about to be fulfilled: the immersion experience at Aponiente in the marshes of the Bay of Cádiz.
León began his speech with an emotional review of last year, marked by a personal challenge: a broken leg that forced him to reduce his frenetic pace and find new opportunities. This period of pause allowed him to dedicate himself to writing a new book – published by Montagud Editores – which brings together in 6 volumes more than 1,000 pages covering the Aponiente universe, his acclaimed restaurant with three MICHELIN stars and a green MICHELIN star, recognised as the most sustainable restaurant in the world in 2022 by The World ‘s 50 Best Restaurants.
I feel like it was year zero for Aponiente’, he said to a packed auditorium. ‘In 2025, Aponiente stops being the restaurant it is to share with our customers our greatest secret; we had the most beautiful garden in the world: the marsh’ is how the video begins, in which Ángel León himself is seen presenting the new experience, focused on the recovery, care and conservation of the marshland adjacent to the tidal mill where Aponiente is located, along with its flora and fauna. In addition, it is committed to incorporating ancestral fishing gear that respects nature and its environment. In this enclave, future diners will be able to have direct contact with the environment and taste local products such as sea bass, mullet, shrimp, oysters, as well as the famous marine charcuterie made from discarded fish, paying tribute to the biodiversity of the bay of Cádiz. They will also get a close-up look at some culinary techniques (such as the use of salt in fish gills or cooking in salt), in a unique introduction to the world of Aponiente. A crucial part of this decision is the alliance with the Ecologistas en Acción confederation, to not only open the marsh to Aponiente’s customers, but also to the public so that they can come into contact with it. Ángel León expressed that ‘Thanks to them, we will not only look at the Cadiz marshes from a different point of view, but we will keep defending them and taking care of them’.
León, who has recently been recognised with the Science Prize awarded by The Best Chef Awards and was named a Food Hero by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) in 2023, shared with the audience a series of experimental findings and innovations, such as the introduction to the halophilic world in the desserts of the new menu, using ingredients from the marine garden in sweet preparations, expanding the limits of the cuisine of the sea. Added to this is the application of the techniques used on the old merchant ships of Cádiz to pastries, inspired by the methods of lacto-fermentation, rum distillation and maceration.
The chef who features in the latest season of Chef’s Table on Netflix revealed experiments such as using the photosensitive chromatic effect of squid skin to create tableware that changes colour on contact with liquids. He also presented an aromatic bubble filled with dimethyl sulphide, a sulphurous compound that emulates the aromatic biological signal of plankton in the sea.
With more than 250 speakers from 25 nationalities, the twenty-third edition of Madrid Fusión celebrates three decades of gastronomic revolution under the slogan ‘Revolutionaries’. Big names such as Ferran and Albert Adrià, Gastón Acurio, Dabiz Muñoz, Massimo Bottura, Andoni Luis Aduriz, Quique Dacosta, Joan Roca, Carme Ruscalleda, Juan Mari Arzak, Pedro Subijana, Martín Berasategui and Yoshihiro Narisawa will share the stage with young talents who are shaping the future of cuisine.
About Ángel León and Aponiente (***)
Chef Ángel León has a total of six MICHELIN stars, increasingly consolidating his position as a key figure in Spanish gastronomy. A benchmark in sustainability, León promotes the defence of the environment through gastronomy.
His Aponiente project (***MICHELIN + *Verde MICHELIN) was recognised as the world’s most sustainable restaurant in 2022 by The World ‘s 50 Best Restaurants and is ranked #72 on this prestigious list. With the restaurant Alevante, located in the Palacio de Sancti Petri, a Gran Meliá Hotel, he adds another two MICHELIN stars. The chef also maintains La Taberna del Chef del Mar located in El Puerto de Santa María – in the same place where he and his team cooked the first two MICHELIN Stars – distinguished with his first Sol Repsol in 2024.
The Aponiente restaurant is located in an old 19th century tide mill. In the heart of the Bahía de Cádiz Natural Park in El Puerto de Santa María. Captained by chef Ángel León, Aponiente is not just a restaurant, but a project that seeks to reactivate and recover the surrounding environment, restoring and creating an ecosystem for future generations and re-establishing the natural balance, caring for the natural capital of the estuaries and marshes. Sustainable fishing and the use of species that have historically been considered discarded products are the hallmarks of the gastronomic proposal of the ‘chef of the sea’, together with innovation, creativity and honesty. For this he has been recognised worldwide as a Food Hero (FAO, the United Nations agency that leads the international effort to end hunger) and has received the Three Knives of Excellence and the Science Award in 2024, awarded by The Best Chef Awards.
Bringing light and brightness back to the sea is part of León’s DNA in all his projects. The chef of the sea continues his daily search for the superfoods that water provides us with, after developing intense R&D work with sea cereal (Zostera marina) since 2018 and with marine soya, which he continues to research.
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