Catching Up with Dani Garcia

For a celebrity chef, Dani Garcia is extremely humble. Though he runs the critically acclaimed two-Michelin star restaurant Calima, in Marbella, Spain, and the modern New York City tapas bar, Manzanilla, Garcia is mostly content to play with and learn about his favorite subject: food.

Originally from Marbella, Garcia enrolled in cooking school at the age of 17 and became an apprentice for internationally recognized Spanish chef Martin Berasategui. At the age of 24, after taking over the kitchens at Tragabuches, a restaurant in the Spanish mountain town of Ronda, Garcia received his first Michelin star. He then moved onto Calima, a restaurant Garcia affectionately calls “his baby”, and settled into his modern Spanish style of cooking. 

Now, with seven-month-old Manzanilla, located in the Flatiron district in Manhattan, Garcia is showing the American world what Andalusian – and Spanish – cooking is all about. The cultural origin of some dishes may be easy to see, but the menu was created to suit the way New Yorkers conceive of eating tapas, which is much different from the way one goes from bar to bar in the south of Spain. 

On the menu, you’ll find Garcia’s favorites: oxtail montadito, cuttlefish croquettes, and fried branzino, all modern takes on classics. His favorite ingredient? “Tomatoes,” he says. “I can do a lot with them.”  And while cooking is a creative process, Garcia prides himself on the technique. “Developing a new dish is really work,” he explains. Like a designer creating a new collection, Garcia wants all the elements of a new menu to complement each other. “I think a restaurant is like theater,” he remarks, emphasizing that every performance must be excellent. 

Next, Garcia talks about his network of colleagues and shares a recipe from Manzanilla…

He also likens cooking to architecture. As the self-deprecating chef explains, “with architecture, one needs the engineering to function and the building to look a certain way, while in cooking the food needs to taste good and not just look beautiful. But unlike with architecture, the final product exists only momentarily, and is more banal since the dishes serve to feed people.” 

As Garcia feeds the people who have come to admire his talent and creativity, he does so with support. He explains that top chefs in Spain encourage and help each other to achieve their goals, and says that this network contributes to the success of each of them. Personally, Garcia looks to Ferran Adria for guidance, calling him “a Picasso of cooking”, and cops to having implemented some of Adria’s molecular gastronomy techniques in his menus.  

About New York’s reception to his country’s food, he says, “I think that people love Spanish food in New York.”  With Garcia in the kitchen, we imagine more than before he arrived.

Want to get a taste of what Garcia is cooking up? Try his recipe for a Fried Brussels sprouts tree. 

Fried Brussels Sprouts Tree with Romesco 

• 1 large bunch Brussels sprouts, still on stalk
• 3 3/4 grams fresh picked cilantro leaves
• 3/4 cup diced dreen pepper
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1/8 cup sherry vinegar 
• 1/8 cup lemon juice
• 1/8 cup water
• 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 1/8 cup olive oil
• 1/2 ripe avocado, peeled

Get the full recipe.