Madrid Fusión Alimentos de España is now underway, bringing together the best of world cuisine in the Spanish capital. The first day of the conference was frenetic, with some of the brightest stars in world gastronomy parading across the different stages available at the conference.

It was a day of stars and surprises, with brilliant presentations in which Michelin stars paraded one after another before hundreds of wide-eyed spectators eager to learn.

The morning began with a surprise, courtesy of Quique Dacosta. The chef of the restaurant that bears his name in the Alicante town of Denia impressed the audience by preparing some of the dishes that have earned his restaurant three Michelin stars. He started with a cold soup with pine nuts and shredded crab meat, reinterpreted “pa amb tomaquet” (bread with tomato) by adding a new formula to the 1,000 that Ferran Adrià says there are for preparing this classic Mediterranean dish. He also couldn't leave out sea urchin rice and impressed the audience with a house-brand starfish.

However, the big surprise of the morning came when he introduced Carolina Álvarez, head chef at Quique Dacosta since 2020. This Mexican chef prepared a mole de novia and, after presenting it, Dacosta announced her as head chef of his new project: the Flores Raras restaurant, which will open on 28 January in Valencia.

In this way, the Dacosta group intends to embark on a new phase as a natural evolution of the gastronomic concept developed to date under the name El Poblet (two Michelin stars), while maintaining the values, standards and culinary identity that have defined its trajectory since 2012.

Another highlight of the morning came when Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch, chefs at the Disfrutar*** restaurant in Barcelona, burst into the auditorium. Together, they tried to summarise what they had been working on at their restaurant during 2025. They showed how they manage to pasify kiwi fruit, delighted the audience with a thistle flower, and captivated the staff by showing how they use the centrifugation technique to make a cream of nuts, which they then apply to a dish where peanuts take centre stage.

They added a sweet note with a white sponge cake with a fine texture, served with soy ice cream to evoke their Japanese inspiration.

In their brief tour of their restaurant in 2025, they also gave a nod to game, preparing a hare sausage.

The conference given by Castro and Xatruch (Mateu Casañas stayed at Compartir) ended with a sharing of one of the sophisticated techniques they use in their restaurant. They showed the world how they make what is known as starch film, a thin edible layer that they use at Disfrutar to make ravioli, but which has countless applications in both sweet and savoury dishes, due to its heat resistance and a texture that even allows it to be cooked.

Customer immersion

Sergio and Javier Torres run the three-starred Cocina Torres Restaurant, where they work with seasonal, high-quality produce using contemporary techniques. They explained how in their restaurant the customer takes control and ‘is part of the experience’.

They highlighted the dining room, which is as important as the kitchen, especially in a restaurant like theirs, where interaction between the customer and the team plays a fundamental role. While describing this interrelationship, they showed how they prepare their woodcock rice and how they ensure that if there is a vegetarian customer at their table, they can also enjoy the flavour of this eminently carnivorous dish through the vegetables. Through their approach, they are able to overcome the challenge posed by the new dining experience, in which a meat-eater, a vegan, a vegetarian and someone with allergies can all share the same table. That is why they have a table of product equivalents based on people's tastes or allergies.

They pay attention to who is sitting at their table and try to make them happy, but they go further and try to make not only the customer happy, but also the team, so that they go home as happy as the diners after a service. The point is to seek and find different ways to make diners happy. This philosophy led them to prepare a potato omelette for a customer last week. Probably ‘the most expensive one in history’, they confessed.

A trip to Rio de Janeiro

There was also room for Rio de Janeiro to take centre stage, as the international guest destination at this edition of Madrid Fusión Alimentos de España. Claude Troisgros and Jéssica Trindade (from the Madame Olympe restaurant in Rio de Janeiro) gave some insights into the gastronomy of the Brazilian city through their presentation “Fisiología del gosto carioca” (The physiology of Carioca taste). They took us on a plane to the Brazilian city and invited us not only to travel across the Atlantic Ocean, but also through the senses that they seek to captivate from their restaurant, which is enjoying great success in its first few months of operation. Troisgros, who moved to Brazil from his native France in 1979, explained that ‘flavour is on the palate; sight is in the presentation; smell is in the aromas; touch is in the textures; and hearing is the sound of life's pleasures’.

They explained that for them, the restaurant is about ‘taking care of customers, giving them a hug, giving them the embrace of Rio de Janeiro, of Gilberto Gil's music. We try to offer them a home in the middle of a complicated world. We want them to feel comfortable and appreciate the product, the creativity, but above all the human warmth’.

They presented one of the dishes they prepare with the heart of the palm tree trunk, seasoned with a cashew nut sauce, to the audience. They offered it to those present to try and received applause from the audience.