Juan Carlos Ramos
Plasencia
Tuesday, October 24, 2023, 7:56 p.m.
Placentino Alberto Montes Pereira, second chef at the Atrio Restaurant in Cáceres, has won the international professional gastronomy competition ‘Best bluefin tuna chef’, which rewards and recognizes the chefs who best prepare this fish.
The award, given by the Balfegó company, was presented after a competition held at the Le Cordon Bleu cooking school and during the gala held at La Estación Gran Teatro CaixaBank Príncipe Pío in Madrid.
A celebration in which Montes received the prize – endowed with a blanket of special Japanese knives for cutting fish, 6,000 euros in cash and a trip to Japan for two people – for presenting two dishes of “impeccable technique” and that should be “national heritage”, according to the jury’s assessment.
Specifically, Montes’ first dish was a “tuna sequence: Spain and Japan”, with which he has merged these two countries; and the second was a ‘pithivier’ (puff pastry) of ‘micuit’ tuna morrill and its bone juice.
The jury of this VI edition has been chaired by the chef Martín Berasategui, who has been accompanied by other chefs such as Diego Guerrero, Benito Bardal or Fina Puigdevall.