EXCLUSIVE: Chef Jose Enrique Reflects on 10 Years at His Restaurant

“I can’t believe it!” Chef Jose Enrique says, with a big smile across his face, when asked about approaching the 10-year mark on his restaurant in Puerto Rico. Enrique has been serving new takes on classic Puerto Rican dishes in San Juan since 2007, and this year, made the James Beard Award Best Chefs in America nominee list yet again.

We caught up with the chef at this year’s Nantucket Wine & Food Festival, where we tried a special dish created on site and chatted about his food, his feelings, and his future.

Let’s start with the dish you prepared for us today.

It’s an avocado papaya salsa. You know what, it will be ten years at my restaurant in a week and I think I first made that mix fourteen or fifteen years ago and it just goes with everything – here, when it’s really cold, and in the summer it’s beautiful. In Puerto Rico, I use it all year around.

I put that papaya salsa over a whole, fried deboned snapper the top and I had that since I opened up and I can’t take it off the menu. If I take it off the menu people get mad at me! They’re like, ‘What are you doing?’ Then the salsa itself – it’s like you can get to any party with that. If there are chips, you have chips; if there’s fish, you have fish. [pagebreak]

How does it feel to have your restaurant coming up on its 10-year mark?

It feels like it hasn’t been that long but it’s been that long! Honestly, we don’t know what to do. Stay there, move around. I love New York. New York would be great, I’ve been thinking about that for a while. I just opened up The Beach Club at the St. Regis, which is in Bahia, and it’s a beautiful location.

How do you react when people call your restaurant a “hole in the wall”?

It’s the first time I heard that but what usually tends to happen is that people just walk past it because it’s a house and there’s no sign, so unless you know…

When I first found that place I think it was already a restaurant years ago and so I wanted to put a sign and I wanted to do a menu, but I was like, wait a minute, it’s not really fitting so since then I’m a true believer in that architecture and structure. So, it’s like, a sign here? That just makes no sense. Menus? No, this feels like an old house, you know, like a grandma will cook, she’ll go to the market, make four things and everybody who works around there will come to their house and she’ll sell food, for lunch and when you ran out you ran out and felt so that’s what I go with.

Is that traditional, “abuela” mentality the inspiration for your food?

I guess. You know what? That’s already there. I mean, you’ve been eating grandma’s food, and aunt’s food and your uncle’s food forever, so I guess that’s already there. I think mainly my inspiration comes from, number one, the product and the produce that’s there. You walk over to the market and there’s like soursop and there’s lobster and shrimp and crab, and I start thinking, ‘Let me do something here.’ I think that’s one thing, and the other thing would be the climate. It’s really important to me – if it’s raining I’ll cook one way, if it’s not, I would cook another way. If I’m sad or happy or hungover, those things come into play. For me, it’s impossible that they wouldn’t come into play, especially in that restaurant. When you have set menus, it’s one thing, but my menu changes daily. 

Since you mentioned it, what do you cook when you’re hungover?

Fatty things! But usually I make like a nice sancocho or something like that, like a local heavy hearty soup, you know with a beer on the side and avocado and hot sauce because it’s great for brunch too. [pagebreak]

How does it feel cooking in Puerto Rico, considering the current political climate there?

I guess the ambiance, not in my restaurant, but through the news and through people, gets a little heavy. But then when you’re in my restaurant it’s as good as it’s ever been, honestly. Right now, it’s beautiful. After work, people come there and I tell them, this is my house but it’s your home and when you walk in here, it’s your home and I honestly believe people feel like that.

What’s a food trend you think we’ll see in the coming months or year?

I don’t know, that’s always so hard to think. I love eating with spoons – eating food that has that little bit of broth around it.

What’s a food trend you really can’t stand?

Well, if you know me, my food is completely different as far as plating goes, so I’m fighting every day to make that thing taste great and plating for me is a second – that’s what I truly believe in, like sometimes I’m just fed up with the tweezers and all those things. And honestly, I think it’s really smart – I mean you have cooks out there putting micro on dishes and they don’t even taste good. And I use micros but there’s a reason why I put it on there.

What’s your typical food day, as a busy chef?

It depends – if I get to my restaurant I do a hundred bites a day or like two hundred but I’ll go for like rice and beans. I love rice and beans, and it’s always on the menu. And I can have them every day.