The Alimentaria trade fair in Barcelona hosted the First International Cooking Competition on 25 March. A major milestone for the 50th edition of this competition, which succeeded in bringing together international culinary talent under the auspices of WorldChefs (World Association of Chefs Societies). This event was one of the main features and underlined the importance of creativity, technique and the use of high-quality ingredients in international gastronomy. Aquanaria did not want to miss the opportunity to support and stand alongside the chefs, by sponsoring this competition and seeing what they are capable of creating with our product, as one of the challenges was to prepare a starter using our sea bass.
Aquanaria is the pioneering company in marine aquaculture in Spain. We currently specialise in raising large-sized sea bass for haute cuisine. Thanks to our robust logistics system, which allows fresh sea bass to be delivered anywhere in the world in less than 48 hours after harvesting, we are present in more than 32 countries. For this reason, some of the most renowned chefs in Spain and abroad, such as the Torres brothers (Cocina Hermanos Torres***), Giuseppe Iannotti (Krèsios**) and Danny Lledó (Xiquet*), already know the advantages of working with a brand like Aquanaria and choose it for their restaurants.
FIRST INTERNATIONAL ALIMENTARIA COOKING COMPETITION
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of this trade fair, Alimentaria decided to give special prominence to haute cuisine and reaffirm the importance of using high-quality ingredients. With this aim in mind, it hosted the first edition of this competition, where two representatives from the six participating countries (Morocco, Azerbaijan, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain) had three and a half hours to impress a demanding international jury. One of the dishes they had to prepare was a hot or cold starter using Aquanaria sea bass.
The jury was made up of the prestigious chefs Uwe Micheel (United Arab Emirates), Petros Gavriel (Cyprus), Erich Glavica (Croatia) and Gert Klotzke (Sweden). All of them are members of WorldChefs and ambassadors of their country’s gastronomy both at home and abroad. The jury did not merely consider the final dish when selecting the winner, but also evaluated different criteria throughout the competition such as mise en place, hygiene and food waste, correct professional preparation and innovation.
POLAND AND ROMANIA WIN GOLD IN A HIGH-LEVEL CHAMPIONSHIP
Each country could compete for three awards: best fish dish, best meat dish and overall winner of the championship. On this occasion, Poland was the overall winner, taking gold in all three categories. Krzysztof Klimaszewski (chef) and Anna Piskorz (assistant) were responsible for representing the country. Together they formed a perfect partnership, combining the chef’s more than 20 years of experience in traditional cuisine with the most modern trends applied by his assistant. The jury had no easy task in choosing the overall winner, and the scoring was extremely close—so close that they decided to award another gold in this category to Romania. Its representatives, Andrei Miron and Alexia Stan, were the youngest chefs in the competition, whose careers have been marked by participation in various national and international contests, achieving very strong results.
The silver medal went to Spain, represented by chefs Toño Rodríguez (La Era de los Nogales*) and Nerea Bescós. Both have received numerous culinary accolades and belong to the Spanish National Professional Cooking Team, with which they promote Spanish cuisine on prestigious stages. The bronze medal went to Azerbaijan, represented by chefs Abulfaz Habibov and Eknur Alimov. Both work in prestigious hotels in the capital, and their cuisine stands out for combining the country’s culinary traditions with contemporary influences to offer fresh and innovative proposals.
AQUANARIA’S COMMITMENT
Activities such as this competition, which encourage chefs’ creativity and make it possible to discover the cuisine of other countries, seem highly enriching and positive to us, and for that reason we will continue to support them. In addition, it is a privilege to bring our brand and values closer to chefs from around the world and to see the affection, care and respect with which they treat our sea bass.
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