2023-08-15 19:39:10
Benjamín Urdiain, the first Spaniard to achieve three Michelin stars, two years before Arzak, died on Monday in Madrid at the age of 84, as announced by the Association of Chefs and Pastry Chefs of the Community of Madrid, of which he was honorary president. .
The renowned chef from Navarra achieved triple stardom with the legendary Zalacaín restaurant, where he fed heads of state from around the world and a list of celebrities, including Maria Callas, Marlon Brando, Jean Paul Belmondo, Jeanne Moreau, Anthony Quinn, Gregory Peck or Farah Diba.
One of the greats of Spanish gastronomy leaves us. Our Honorary President, Maestro Benjamín Urdiaín.
The first three Michelin stars in Madrid and Spain, but above all he leaves us a great person. Humble, kind and a great professional.
D.E.P. pic.twitter.com/ilIxYOnOTn
— ACYRE MADRID (@ACYRE_) August 14, 2023
Born in 1939 in the Navarrese town of Ziordia, where he was a favorite son, Urdiain’s history is linked to the marriage, also from Navarre, formed by Jesús Oyarbide and Consuelo Apalategui, who in 1973 opened Zalacaín in Madrid, immediately becoming the great temple of the gastronomy of the capital of Spain. There he worked as head chef and reached the pinnacle of his career, bringing classic Spanish recipes to haute cuisine, from cod with ajoarriero to stew. In 1987 Zalacaín reached the top with the third Michelin star, the first Spanish restaurant to obtain them. At that time there were only 27 restaurants in Europe with that distinction.
The son of farmers, at the age of 17 Urdiain left his native Ziordia for San Sebastián, where he took his first steps in a restaurant in the old town. He learned French cuisine in Biarritz, Bayonne, Pau and Paris, where he worked in the kitchens of the Plaza Athénée, one of the most prestigious restaurants in the French capital. Back in the Basque Country, he ended up in Artagán, in Bilbao, before the call from the Oyarbide family to lead Zalacaín, named after the novel by Pío Baroja.
Urdiain spent almost 30 years in charge of Zalacaín, where he stopped working as a cook 11 years ago. Awarded the National Gastronomy Prize, in 2002 he was also awarded in Lyon by the International Academy of Gastronomy with the Grand Prize for Memory and Gratitude.
«Eating while my wife fry some anchovies for me is a gift. Or a good battered hake… because in this house I cook every day”, he told the journalist Julián Méndez in an interview published four years ago and in which, among tasty anecdotes with Gregory Peck, he confessed his dream as a child: be a cook
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