Meadowood’s 12 Days of Christmas, Day Two: Rodolfo Guzman of Boragó in Chile
On Friday night, the Restaurant at Meadowood commenced its annual 12 Days of Christmas guest chef series. Here at Inside Scoop, we’re reviving our own tradition of individually tracking each night’s exploration of cuisine from the chefs from around the world, through their words and their food. You can check out past years here: 2012, 2011 and 2010.
“I don’t believe much in avant garde,” says Rodolfo Guzman, the young chef-owner of Boragó in Santiago, Chile.
“I believe that the human being is moving back and forth in time. We are looking back in time, to walk forward.”
Guzman comes from a background unlike most chefs. He has cooked at Mugaritz in Spain, but has also worked in the science realm, studying chemical engineering, bioprocesses and microstructures. At Boragó, he says that he and his team think a lot about the time and the Chilean legacy through a culinary lens.
“Our cuisine is very changing a lot, week to week, maybe day to day.”
He points to one example in particular. In 2007, he and his team thought they experienced a culinary breakthrough: They figured out a way to make espino seeds edible. A member of the acacia family, espino is native to Chile and something they had been working on translating to the dining room; however, glowing from their discovery, they told other people, only to find out that the indigenous Mapuche people had been doing the same thing for thousands of years.
Accordingly, espino made an appearance on Saturday night’s dinner at the Restaurant at Meadowood, in a 21st century way: a dessert consisting of espino ice cream, “espino seeds” in a pod, and espino-chocolate soil. Other dishes by Guzman and his crew incorporated components like a rica rica, mushrooms from Quintay, and a dulce-de-leche-inspired veal dish.
This trip was the first time Guzman and Christopher Kostow had met, but the two had no problem getting in sync with a Chilean-themed evening, and as you can see in the menu below, the Restaurant at Meadowood crew got into the spirit with some of their own dishes in similar spirits.
“What we’re doing is different. [Boragó] is only based on what grows in Chile and nowhere else,” says Guzman. “I think we’ll give the people a real taste of Chile, a cuisine that nobody knows much about.”
The menu:
Day Two of the Twelve Days of Christmas
December 7, 2013
***
Curanto
Rodolfo Guzman
Smashed Pumpkin
The Restaurant
Chupe of Mushrooms from Quintay
Rodolfo Guzman
Grist Mill Grains, Cockscombs, Truffle
The Restaurant
Acorn Cod
The Restaurant
Veal and Her Milk
Rodolfo Guzman
Lamb in Calistoga Clay
The Restaurant
Andante Dairy, Apple Leaves
The Restaurant
Ice Cream and Macaroon of Rica Rica from Atacama
Rodolfo Guzman
Chilean Espino
Rodolfo Guzman
***
Realm Cellars
Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley 2010
Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley 2012
“The Tempest” Napa Valley 2011
“The Falstaff” Napa Valley 2009
“Farella Vineyard” Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley 2008
“Beckstoffer Dr. Crane” Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley 2010
“Beckstoffer To Kalon” Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley 2007
Previously
· Day One: Andy Ricker, Pok Pok (Portland)