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Chef Juan Manuel Barrientos
Juan Manuel Barrientos is the chef and owner of the renowned restaurant Elcielo, which has locations in Medellin, Bogota and Pasto in Colombia, and in Miami and Washington D.C. Born in Medellín, Colombia, on June 16, 1983, he is a cook, entrepreneur, lecturer and peace leader.
With Elcielo, “Juanma,” as he is known in the gastronomic world, has been awarded Michelin stars for his vibrant and sophisticated concept. This is due, among other things, to the fact that he combines, in a fun way while invoking imaginative culinary experiences, ancestral Colombian cuisine with Latin American ingredients and modern avant-garde techniques. In addition to Elcielo, Chef Barrientos is the creator of Serenissima (a pizzeria chain), Cuyo (an Asian restaurant), and Kai (a vegan restaurant).
He has been recognized as the youngest chef in the 50 Best Chefs in Latin America for three consecutive times and in 2016 he was on The World's Best Chefs list.
On August 20, Barrientos opened a new restaurant called Cartagena by Juan Manuel Barrientos in the SLS Hotel in South Beach, Florida. According to the project manager, Sofía Arias, the new restaurant has a more casual, vibrant and fun concept. She says seeks to transcend the dining experience to an extraordinary party. It offers an interactive experience that is designed to be served family style, with colors and flavors of the Colombian Caribbean.
On the occasion of the inauguration of Cartagena by Juan Manuel Barrientos, el Restaurante contributor Natalia Otero spoke with Chef “Juanma.”
Natalia Otero: How did the idea of making Elcielo come about?
JUAN MANUEL BARRIENTOS: Elcielo started in 2007. My parents have always supported me in my ideas and in the exploration of my dreams. I worked in international trade with my father, but I studied cooking. Then I worked at Arzak [a restaurant in Gipuzkoa, Spain] and once I arrived, at the age of 23, from an internship in San Sebastian, I found a place to set up Elcielo. Thus, I opened the first Elcielo in Medellín.
The business grew and grew, and each member of the family became involved, investing. We all became partners and that's when the company really grew.
Your concept is innovative and sophisticated. What inspired you and how did you come to develop this unique and authentic concept?
JMB: When I was at Arzak, I learned to make traditional Basque cuisine with modern techniques. When I returned to Colombia, I set out to do the same thing: explore the Colombian territory, get to know the traditional recipes and ancestral ingredients, and modernize it. So that's what I did: I took traditional Colombian food and made it modern.
How were those first years in Medellin?
JMB: The first years were very nice, people received us very pleasantly, they loved going to Elcielo. From the first day Elcielo was full. We did a soft opening, and we invited 50 people, but we ended up receiving 600. So, the day we opened, Elcielo was already fully booked.
You were pioneers in fine dining. What was the biggest challenge?
JMB: The biggest challenge was that we did not know about restaurants. We had a very poorly equipped kitchen, we didn't have that many resources. Our knowledge about fine dining was limited because there were none in Medellín. We had to make protocols looking at other restaurants outside the city, learn from them and come back to teach them to the staff. We had to create a business culture.
How have you handled the issue of maintaining Elcielo's creative line, which distinguishes you and makes you stand out, in each of the locations and in the other restaurants? Do you give the line to the chefs?
JMB: I have not stopped being the creative director and, as we grow, we empower each of the chefs in each kitchen. Each one does research on the territory, and they make their own proposals, with Elcielo's DNA, but from their own vision of the cuisine. It's all teamwork, and not just the chefs, but a creative team of five to six people who are constantly sharing ideas that serve us all for all the restaurants, like a creative workshop.
Where did you get that creativity from?
JMB: Thanks to my parents. They always encouraged me to be creative and they awakened that creativity, not necessarily in the kitchen. Because of that, I was never afraid to be creative, and I found a passion in that creativity.
Tell me about the philosophy behind the ingredients you source.
JMB: For us the issue of quality is non-negotiable, and we have the highest quality ingredients. First, we look for the ingredients we have around us. Then, we involve ingredients from Colombian cuisine. And, of course, we also look for unique ingredients that we have from around the world at our disposal. We use all this because we are really interested in having an exceptional product, even if it comes from another part of the world, because it is not worth giving them up, even if we have to bring them from far away. For example, in Washington we make a donut with special wheat flour from Virginia and we put a chontaduro cream from Valle del Cauca (Colombia) and sea urchin from Hokkaido (Japan). All the meats are traceable, that is, we make sure that the animals have been grass fed, and low impact.
You create unique, innovative and “strange” dishes. How have people perceived it?
JMB: For me, the perception we have of how people receive us is that there is a lot of love for Elcielo and its cuisine. We have a very high feedback from our customers and that's because we are very attentive to that: to be always serving them in an excellent way.
How was the experience of your first Michelin star?
JMB: At that time, we were leaving COVID, so the year I won it there was no gala. They called me to enter Zoom, for an interview with a chef who was going to publish about us on the Michelin guide page. But they didn't tell us more, and I thought it was really an interview. And when we went in, there they were waiting for us, they called the chef for the interview and, from France, he greeted us and said: “I want to tell you that you have just received a Michelin star”. It took us by surprise and we did the celebration there, through the computer. For the second one, there was a gala, so we received an email asking us to update our data, and then we went to the gala, where you don't know if you are going to win or if you are going to lose the one you already had. But, we received it at the gala and since then we have had it three times in each restaurant: three in Miami and three in Washington.
What do these awards and the international recognition mean?
JMB: For me, they mean that it is worth dreaming, that it is worth working for dreams, making life sacrifices, stoicism, discipline. I started working when I was 23 years old and I have been with Elcielo for 17 years. It is a long career and you have to have stamina and a very clear focus.
Internally, Elcielo's employees feel like their own family. What is the corporate culture like, what are the values?
JMB: This is a matter of corporate culture, of discipline, of having a very clear focus, of teamwork, and of people becoming attuned to the excellence that is required. At the beginning it was very complicated because we had not created a corporate culture, but, 17 years later, the new people who arrive know that they are going to be involved in demanding processes. Elcielo's workers already know and are mentally prepared to be excellent, they know that they must be aware of every little detail, and that it requires a lot of patience. It is hard work, both physically and mentally, and I think they are already mentally prepared.
What do you recommend to people who are starting out on the road to opening their own restaurants in the United States?
JMB: I think that a person who is going to open a restaurant has to be very clear about the cuisine he or she is going to cook. To have a very good chef and an administrator who knows everything at the administrative level. Or, if you are a restaurant entrepreneur, but you don't have a clear concept of cuisine, you should find a good partner who knows about cuisine and concept. That's what I did with my parents: they were very good managers, and I had a clear concept.
You also have to have a natural captive market prior to the opening of the restaurant. Let me explain: a natural market is that when people open a business and they have not created a name or recognition among friends and cooks, when they open it is very difficult to get people. On the other hand, having a natural base for the first few months helps to make yourself known, to generate word of mouth, and to survive.
How do you see Colombian cuisine in the eyes of the world?
JMB: From the point where we started about 20, 25 years ago, which was a starting point where we began to see changes of peace in the country, changes of peace created a very large base of ingredients. It does not mean that it did not exist before, but the war robbed us of the countryside. The war made the peasants and indigenous populations migrate to the cities to look for jobs of any kind and abandon their recipes and customs. So, we had a dark era in Colombian cuisine because we could not go to the countryside, the chefs could not look for ingredients, the peasants could not get them either and they sent their children to the cities so that the guerrillas would not recruit them.
In 2000, when the peace process began, until today, there has been a transformation of the country and the recovery of the countryside. This has created a new rebirth of the kitchen. Until today, we have walked thousands of kilometers and we are doing well. However, when you compare our cuisine with other more millenarian cuisines that did not go through a war process like ours, such as Italian, Mexican, Japanese or Peruvian, you see that they are many years ahead of us in terms of development. They erased our recipes from Cauca, Chocó, Orinoco, Amazon. So, if you look at other countries that have liquor industries, restaurants, employment, better economy, you realize that there is still a very big area of opportunity because we are far away from those countries, so that Colombian cuisine can grow. In any case, we are too advanced for the long and difficult road we have had to travel. That is why we have a chain of farmers, each restaurant has a purchasing department, and they are investigating what ingredients and suppliers to use from each place. That is how we have generated a network of suppliers for each restaurant: we buy from farmers in Virginia, in the United States, to indigenous communities in the Amazon and Chocó, such as the pipilongo.
What's next for you and Elcielo?
JMB: This August 20 we [opened] a new project: Cartagena by Juan Manuel Barrientos. It [is] at the SLS South Beach Miami Hotel, with a la carte Colombian cuisine, but a little more casual than Elcielo. Much more accessible in price, more for snacks, cocktails, and more fun. They are dishes that are traditional cuisine, but they are not fine dining. We have dishes like ceviche, empanadas, pandeyucas, chicharrones, and arroz atollados. It is a new concept of modern Colombian cuisine in the heart of South Beach, inspired by the Caribbean region, its flavors and gastronomy, offering a bistro for all the public. It is the essence of Cartagena and serves as an inspiration and embodiment of the Caribbean and tropical spirit.
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