Óscar Pérez, chef at Erronda Zaharra (Bilbao): From the Guggenheim and the Kursaal to his family’s neighborhood
Óscar Pérez, chef at the Erronda Zaharra (Bilbao)
Trained in the Berasategui Group, the chef returned to Uribarri to honor his grandmother with a restaurant attached to his people
Óscar Pérez (Bilbao, 1978) is a man attached to his neighbourhood, a restless guy who, after living up close with the brilliance of the Martín Berasategui Group at the inauguration of the Guggenheim and the Kursaal, about ten years ago it was time to pay the ‘ debt’ with Uribarri, behind the Bilbao City Council, and with his grandmother, who after the war came to the same house where the Erronda Zaharra is now.
Erronda Zaharra (Bilbao)
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direction
Uribarri, 18 -
phone
944360989 -
Social networks Facebook
-Uribarri…
-I was born in this neighborhood and I have love for my mom. That’s why I wanted to open the restaurant right in the house where they met.
-But there are places with more names, more clients…
–My goal was to return to kilometer zero of my life; He traveled a lot, worked in hotels in Barcelona, Logroño, Zaragoza… but I felt indebted to my mom, with whom I learned to cook my first dishes.
-It’s close to the neighborhood.
-Uribarri has given me everything and I try to buy the raw material in the neighbourhood, at the Gaizka fishmonger, Zelaia fruit, the butcher… This is an old, traditional neighbourhood, and at first I was afraid, because I started with a Creative cuisine and they were all losses. People in the neighborhood have low purchasing power, with many pensioners, so he decided to make a change and offer Jack, Knight and King. Today, for example, I have lentils, peas, fillet, breast, pilpil cod.
-Traditional cuisine, I see.
–Yes, we throw a lot of stews, marmitakos, tail… very long stews with a lot of flavor.
–Exactly what is not done at home.
“Yeah, that sounds funny. I started doing creative cooking and now I prepare simple recipes, without trompe l’oeil, without cheating the customer.
-It’s curious, his learning was on the other hand…
-My first job was in the Berasategui Group and that marks me, for better or for worse, because I was with them at the opening of the Guggenheim and Kursaal restaurants. That’s where I learned how important discipline is…
A promise
–Many chefs talk about discipline more than, I don’t know, the preparation of dishes or their presentation.
-It’s all about discipline: towards the colleague, towards the client, from having a clean knife to being a perfectionist when taking out a plate. You can’t be distracted. I don’t understand going out at night and hooking up to go to work, because you’re not prepared to solve problems.
–Don’t you envy your most famous colleagues?
-No, I consider myself very humble and with principles. When I started studying I promised my mom that I would come to work in Uribarri and he achieved my goal.
-He is a hotelier for her…
-My mom and my mom were cooks and I’ve sucked it, it’s what they saw at home and I liked it, so when I was 17 I enrolled in the Leioa school.
–They would warn him that the job is hard.
–Yes, but I am not a person who goes out at night and I am privileged to have a job, to pay for electricity, water, feed my daughter… I work from Monday to Sunday and we only close for one week throughout the year, but I love what I do.
a stressful time
–Can you live off a week?
-Of course, the first years we closed for 15 days and I felt so bad that I came back from vacation early. It wasn’t because of the money, but because he missed the job; He already told you that I am privileged.
– A vocational
-It is that you have to like it, because this is very sacrificed. You have to get rid of many things, like going out with friends at night or football, where I played in the Third Division. But I put things on a scale and saw that in my house there was not much money, so work was a way to help my parents.
– And how has the pandemic banded?
-It has been stressful, with so many openings, so many closings… it has affected me psychologically. She has kept me awake at night, now I come to work at four and go to bed at seven or eight. But you know? I got up at four in the morning and I came with a face of tremendous satisfaction..
–Pandemic, restrictions… and payroll and expenses to pay.
–Of course, seven of us used to work here and now there are three of us because it didn’t work; I lost 50,000 euros. I told my parents and my daughter, who didn’t understand why they blamed us for everything, why they closed us, if when you went to the subway or to the supermarkets you saw a tremendous gap.
Sow today…
A few months ago, Óscar Pérez took over the Lubarrieta, a farmhouse located next to the Zamudio Technology Park where all the workers are residents of Uribarri, in another act of love for the neighbourhood. Pérez, on the other hand, will improve at the Erronda Zaharra. The chef is also the author of ‘Let’s cook and let it happen what has to happen’, we discover benefits dedicated to social works and from time to time he opens his place to feed people without resources from Uribarri. As if the sector had few problems, he now adds the rise in prices: «We have raised prices a little because we need to sell a lot to earn little, but I prefer to plant today to harvest in the long run…».