For The Love of Food

When did you know you wanted to cook professionally? My grandfather was a chef, and in my family it’s always been very important to eat well, so when I was 16 I decided to study cooking in Barcelona. You worked at the much-missed Mare Nostrum. Have you brought any of the dishes from there to Tao? At Tao we make Mediterranean cuisine, so it’s different from Mare Nostrum, which was a Spanish fine dining restaurant. At Tao, we want to make a variety of fresh, healthy food that’s affordable for all pockets. It is for this reason that we change the lunch menu every week and the dinner menu every two weeks. What are some of your favorite dishes at Tao?s It’s hard to choose a dish, but the most popular are Guacamole Tartare, Shrimp Salad and especially the Beef Tenderloin. We hear your husband is a chef, too. How did you meet? Yes, he’s also a chef in a Spanish restaurant. We met at culinary school in Barcelona. Do you two ever get competitive? No, I believe he cooks better, but Jordi thinks I cook better. When you two eat at home, who cooks? After cooking all week, we don’t cook at home. So where do you like to go out to eat? During the week I go very often to Bocata in Sanlitun, which has a great terrace, and also to Morel’s.