Gabriel Navarro and Eire Palacios are 17 years old, students of the Intermediate Vocational Training in Cuisine at the Zonzamas Institute, and are among the 50 selected from all over Spain for the next phase of the 14th High Cuisine Promises Award of the Madrid campus of the prestigious cooking school Le Cordon Bleu.
You can vote for your recipes until February 20: Eire Palacios Herrero ("Quail possessed by the Lanzarote volcano") and Gabriel Navarro Oliveros (“Quail in red wine”) so they can be among the ten finalists. In the end, two of them will be awarded a scholarship to study at the prestigious school.
In an interview with the radio program Mas de Uno Gourmet on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero, they share their passion for cooking, their plans, and the mechanics of the competition
- How did you decide to study cooking? Did you have anyone in your family in the industry?
Gabriel Navarro: I started during the pandemic. I was in Peru, where we were confined at home for two years. I wanted to do my bit, and I got into cooking. Easy things at first, I started by making bread. The first one turned out like a rock; we used it as a paperweight at home (laughs).
In my family, no one worked directly in the kitchen, but my dad had written a Peruvian cookbook at one point. When I arrived here, I decided to study for a vocational degree in cooking to specialize and to be able to make a living from it because it's what I'm passionate about
Eire Palacios: I've liked cooking since I was very young and have been by my father's side cooking. My uncle is the head chef at a hotel in Costa Calero. Ever since I started secondary school, I knew I didn't want to do A-levels because I wanted to specialize in cooking.
- In Zonzamas, they have many practices and a restaurant… How does it work?
Eire Palacios: We have a kitchen on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. We serve on Thursdays, and we usually change the menus every quarter. This quarter we are focusing on international menus: last week was Asian, this week is African.
- Is there a budget limit when creating a menu?
Gabriel Navarro: Well, not at the moment, but the biggest restrictions we have are with food items we can't get, because it's difficult for them to reach the island or they are simply too expensive, and we don't know how to prepare some of them yet. In the end, it's a set menu with a price of 20-25 euros.
- Have you done any internships outside of school and for the future?
Gabriel Navarro: I was lucky enough to do my internship month at the Albatros hotel in Costa Teguise, and then they called me to work in the summer. I studied in the mornings and worked in the afternoons until last week. I've decided to prioritize my studies to go on an internship with good enough grades to go where I intend to go.Eire Palacios: Yes, I did them at the Trébol hotel, in Costa Teguise. And in the summer I went to one in Puerto del Carmen called Las Costas. The first year the internships are 120 hours, the second 380 hours. I'm planning to go to Castellón, my parents are from there, and I could stay at a two-Michelin-star restaurant.
- They are so sure of themselves that they participated in the contest at the Madrid campus of Le Cordon Bleu. How was that?
Eire Palacios: It's called the High Cuisine Promises Award, and they gave us the opportunity at the institute. Out of all the schools in Spain, they only selected 50, and we had the opportunity.
- What was the selection process like?
Gabriel Navarro: The first phase was to present your data, answer a few questions about cooking, about your life and your plans.
Once deemed fit for the next stage, they sent us the guidelines for the video recipes. In this case, it was quail deboned from the back with a filling of our choice. Soufflé potatoes were also mandatory. Plus a sauce and a side dish of our choosing.
- And you recorded some video recipes…
Eire Palacios: Yes, they gave us a month until January 15th to send the technical sheet and the video.
- How does the next phase work?
Eire Palacios: You can vote until February 20th, and on the 23rd they say 10 people out of those 50 will go to Madrid (Laughter). The next day we cook the dish we want in their facilities, and there the jury will choose two for the Cordon Bleu scholarships.
- They are competitors...
Eire Palacios: We are, but in a good way. I told him about my dish, he told me about his, and we both said, "Look, if I were you, I'd add this." Then our professor Tere advised us. We're supporting each other so we can both reach the final.
