Ignacio Echapresto: ‘Cooking based on one’s roots is here to stay’

Take the earth’s pulse, follow its rhythms, look at the sky and be guided by the moon. That is Ignacio Echapresto’s mantra when it comes to cooking.The idea of communion with the environment is the cornerstone of his gastronomic thinking. A return to one’s origins which, for Ignacio, has not actually happened as he never left them. 

‘Rural cooking, that of villages, what we ate as we were growing up – this local, roots-based cooking is now being truly appreciated. In our case, reinventing ourselves – something that was talked about a lot at the start of the pandemic – wasn’t something we had to do,’ says Echapresto, who cooks with local produce and is the chef at Venta Moncalvillo*, a restaurant in Daroca de Rioja, a small town in the province of La Rioja.

That is precisely why Ignacio Echapresto could not fail to come to Terrae, a meeting where support for small producers, the recovery of forgotten products and ways of doing things, and respect for the environment are essential. A way of understanding gastronomy that is garnering ever more followers, and one that could run the risk of being more of a fad than a trend, although Echapresto is convinced that ‘it’s here to stay.’ He believes this for various reasons: ‘Firstly, because we’re all aware that we are destroying the planet and we must begin by reversing this.’ The way to do this from a gastronomic point of view is to cook using local produce, adopt a culture of sustainability, care for and tend to the environment and nature. Not just with regard to what we cook, but also controlling what we grow and the effect that the crops we grow for our tables have. It’s something that’s not going away.’ With that in mind, we should be alert and pay attention to people, like Echapresto, who know their onions vis-à-vis ‘cooking with one’s surroundings.’ Proof that this philosophy is practised daily at Venta Moncalvillo is the Green Star awarded to the restaurant by the French Michelin Guide.

It involves setting aside seeds from one year to the next to ensure the traceability of produce, always being in touch with the people who run the market gardens whose produce you want to cook with and its seasonality, being aware of the cycles of the moon when it comes to pickling, or using stems and roots, etc. By ‘having a relationship with the landscape, the mountains, market gardens, and understanding how the moon and biodynamics can influence our work and our cooking’ Ignacio shapes his ideas and his gastronomic offering. Just because this is village food, it doesn’t mean it’s less creative, ‘in fact, it’s as innovative as any other. What it is, however, is that it’s more respectful of its surroundings,’ explains this cook.