Pau Sintes, a young chef with culinary roots

Miriam Triay/Alaior - Pau Sintes Juanico (Alaior, 2000), is a Young Menorcan Chef who, having earned this title in 2022, also became the best young chef in Europe -winning the European Young Chef competition-, at only 21 years old. Two years later, his life has followed a culinary path, full of passion and vocation, which has led him to experiment with different forms of cuisine; although, always with Menorcan roots, and with the product of the land as a flag.

Among these, the cuisine of ca n’Squella stands out, with which he has participated in various activities, with the book Sa cuina de Ca n’Squella (Bep Al·lès) as a guide. We talk to the professional capable of giving shape to the letters, and of cooking the pages of various recipes.

How does this passion for cooking arise?

Since I was little, cooking has been a part of me. In my house we have always been lovers of produce, of the land, of seasonality, of the dishes that this can offer if you understand and learn. We like to go fishing in the mountains, to look for bloodworms, asparagus, snails... We are not country people, nor fishermen, but we are very rooted in Menorcan gastronomy and products.
In addition, my grandmother had a bakery in Alaior, where people would go to bake their dishes, since they could not do it from home. It is for this reason that, in her place, they had a great variety of dishes and cuisines, which my grandmother always explained and showed me. A first example of how enriching Menorcan gastronomy is, especially popular. Since, and even though the recipes are general, each house makes them in its own way.

How do you go from a passion to a vocation and profession?

I really didn't plan on studying cooking. As I say, my passion goes further, it also embraces the product, seasonality, the land, the Menorcan tradition... So, when I discovered the Culinary and Gastronomic Sciences degree at CETT-UB in Barcelona, ??which interspersed the entire culinary part with the dietary nutrition part, food technology, chemical processes... I decided to do it. It was a step beyond cooking. It was also about learning and understanding the product, the path it follows; learning the importance of everything that surrounds the dish.
While I was studying this degree, and afterwards, I have been working for different companies and restaurants, both in Barcelona and Menorca. To name a few, I have been at the local 'La Placeta de Montgat' in Barcelona, ??at the restaurant in the port of Maó 'Sa Lliga Marítim'... And, this year it will be 3 years since I have been at the restaurant of the boutique hotel 'Cristine Bedfor', located in Maó.

What can you tell us about your experience at ‘Cristine Bedfor’?
This will be the second year that I have designed the menu, because we are the head chef. I started as a cook, but in the second year they put me in charge. And it is a job full of stimuli and learning. In the end, it is the kitchen of a hotel restaurant, with snacks, lunches and dinners.
From ‘Cristine Bedfor’ they trust me, and this means that I am given tasks that become challenges. I can take risks here. I can choose the products, and bet, increasingly, on local producers. In fact, this year I have added dishes, a la carte, a little Menorcan. Like a panadera style of monkfish versioned, a stuffed squid, lamb from Menorca from Sa Cooperativa del Camp, fresh cheese fritters, soft cheese from Maó... I have added dishes that are based on Menorcan products and recipes. Like my cooking.

How would you define your cuisine?

My cuisine is faithful, or tries to be faithful to the Menorcan product and gastronomy and culture. It is a cuisine that does not abandon its traditional Menorcan origin, but neither does innovation. If I have gone to a culinary event abroad, like in Barcelona, Madrid Fusión, FITUR, the Gastronomic Forum or the Food Fair, what I try to do is show our product. And what is behind it.
Because, in the end, from the outside, the local product is reduced to cheese and sobrasada, and it is not like that. We have very good oil, saffron, meat... so, what I try with my cuisine is to give value to these products that, perhaps, are a little more marginalized. To put it on the table for people to taste, and to explain its origin.

In fact, you have participated in a series of activities around Menorcan cuisine, claiming it, right?
Yes, always claiming the cuisine here. I think I was born, as I said before, in an environment favorable to all this. So, my philosophy of cooking is what it is thanks to the perception I have had since I was a child. In the end, we cook to tell stories. You always show, even if it is, a small part of you. For example, I always, to any dish, have to add some different ingredient, some brand, that defines the dish as mine. As if it were a signature.

In fact, these activities you are talking about have been related to different cuisines of Menorcan roots. Because our cuisine is divided into three general branches: popular cuisine, stately cuisine and ecclesiastical cuisine. Luckily, I have been able to know and experience all three. Participating in events that have allowed me to recover and transform recipes from Fra Roger's book, which would be this ecclesiastical cuisine of the 18th and 19th centuries; and also the stately cuisine of ca n'Squella, which Bep Al·lès has recovered.

And which cuisine would you say you have focused on the most?
First of all, I would have been more linked to popular cuisine, because it is what I have always seen in our house. The most popular and traditional recipes. Which have always been transmitted orally and which, therefore, usually present variations according to each house. For this reason, it is also perhaps the cuisine that is used the most.

Popular recipes that, in addition, have also been evolving and changing, and it is good that it is like this, that they go through this process. Because, for example, in popular cuisine, right now, the most well-known dish is perhaps oliaigua, but until tomatoes arrived from America, this was not what it is now, it must have been a oliaigua broix, perhaps different. I mean that we should not give up on including new products and ingredients in traditional cuisine, because in the end, cuisine evolves, like everything else, it progresses. Obviously with roots and a sense, but without giving up all this.

But beyond that, the fact of recovering and transforming recipes from books, both ecclesiastical and stately cuisine, has been an important exercise, which has helped me to know other aspects of traditional cuisine, such as the combination of ingredients that was done at that time. In addition to helping me in my creativity when making my own cuisine. Because the chef's job is to cook, but also to create. To put together products, resulting in new dishes... And these old recipe books have helped me a lot with this. To keep my head in constant operation, to create new flavors, new textures, through what was done at that time...
That's why when they propose any activity of this type to me, I always accept.

Each recipe book has its own style, and all three branches have seemed very interesting to me and have helped me grow and learn in the world of Menorcan cuisine.

Among these activities, those related to the book Sa cuina de ca n’Squella, by Bep Al·lès stand out. Around it, you have already done three tastings.

Yes, I have done three activities around this recipe book, one at the Tast de Cultura 2023, another at the Fira del Llibre en Català 2023, and the last one was this year, on March 2, organized by the Consell de Menorca, to celebrate the Day of the Balearic Islands.
All accompanied by Bep Al·lès, a writer and gastronomic journalist who has ended up becoming a point of trust for me. I always ask him for help, because, the truth is, he has enormous knowledge and a very important ability to transmit this stately cuisine that he has researched. If it weren't for him, we probably wouldn't have been able to recover these recipes and samples that we can both read and taste today. Therefore, these activities have allowed me to form a tandem with him, which from my point of view, works very well.

In addition, these are events that we usually prepare together. I ask him for the dishes that I could prepare during the tasting, and he guides me. Thus, both at the Tast de Cultura and at the Fira del Llibre en Català, we prepared a vegetable pasteló [page 63 of the book], which combines savory and sweet, a coca de monyaco [page 85], and a peix sans spines [page 26]. Three traditional dishes from the ca n'Squella cuisine that, obviously, we modified, maintaining their flavor. Both to adapt it to the format of the tasting, and to give it my personal touch, which I was talking about before.

And now, in this last activity at the beginning of March, which we did at the Municipal Museum – Can Saura, we decided to change, and bet on the sweet coca with peppers and sobrassada [page 82].

Has there been any dish from this stately cuisine that you have incorporated into the Cristine Bedfor menu after having practiced and read it so many times?
Not at the moment. But something, some combination, will certainly be there. At least a hint.

And what does your future hold? Do you plan to continue exploring traditional Menorcan cuisine?
Yes. In the end, it's a bit like my philosophy, my dynamics. And since each dish has a thousand reinterpretations and ways of being executed, once you have the base and the main guide, then it's like a game. And I hope to continue playing it for many more years. In this sense, I have never given up on having my own restaurant, I would be very excited. But I don't see it as a near future either.

Now I want to continue learning and creating. And for this I will explore another of my facets in this world, which is education. I want to do a Master's degree to be able to work as a teacher in the future. I have always thought that teachers must remain in contact with the real world, because they must be up to date with new techniques and everything that is happening. Therefore, in the future I would like to be able to combine the more practical field, that of a chef, with teaching, which I also believe is very important and I am passionate about.
I would like to be able to show cooking, from my philosophy, to be able to transmit it, so that new generations know the product and its importance, respecting it at all times.