NEW YORK (AP) — On his new TV show, celebrated chef José Andrés goes into a restaurant kitchen in Spain and confronts a massive moray eel. Only one of them is leaving that kitchen intact.
Andrés oversees as cooks prepare the eel for its final flourish — deboned, sliced paper thin, dredged in three kinds of flour and then deep fried with cilantro.
“People of the world, I know you don’t usually eat eel. But if you try it, you will love it,” he says to the viewers. “Nothing can be more simple and more sophisticated at the same time.”
That eel is just one delicious moment in discovery+'s “José Andrés and Family in Spain,” which follows the chef, restaurateur and humanitarian on a food tour through his homeland with his three American-raised daughters, Carlota, Inés and Lucia Andrés.
The ladies join their dad as they visit such places as Barcelona, Madrid, Andalusia, Valencia, the Canary Islands and Asturias, where he was born and where the food, he says, made him who he is. It's a travel show, a cooking show and a parenting show, all wrapped up in a celebration of Spain and proud fatherhood.
“I think going with my dad and going to all of these places was just so special because he’s such a curious person,” Carlota Andrés says in a recent interview with her dad at Nubeluz, the elder Andrés' rooftop bar at the The Ritz-Carlton in New York. “That’s the type of person that he is and no trip is the same if he’s not there.”
Throughout is José Andrés' infectious and ebullient spirit, a whirlwind of passion for food and respect for where it came from. He cheers both the deconstructive brilliance of august restaurant El Bulli and also humble street food.
Tapas turns out to be a perfect reflection of his philosophy on eating —...
