By The Best Chef NEW CANDIDATES Top100 2022

Ricard Camarena

A restless and passionate chef, Ricard Camarena gave up one of his early obsessions, music, and his trumpet to dedicate himself fully to cooking. He traded in scores for recipes, musical compositions for gastronomic ones, playing in a band for cooking in a team.

Trading in scores for recipes, musical compositions for gastronomic ones

When he opted for the stove full time, taste was not up for discussion. Ricard Camarena was equally uncompromising on other aspects like, for instance, total respect for seasonal produce. And another of his top priorities is to ensure that his customers always feel welcome and at home.

This successful combination of taste, freshly sourced produce and excellence in service won him a Michelin Star three times (Arrop, Arrop Valencia and Ricard Camarena Restaurant) and three Repsol Suns for his ‘Ricard Camarena Restaurant‘. And he was recognized as the National Gastronomy Award as “best chef” by the Spanish Royal Academy of Gastronomy.

Supporting a working philosophy based on the search for the most authentic flavours of locally sourced food

“Our cuisine is underpinned by a constant search for taste. We respect the identity of each product so that, when taken together with other ingredients, they create new tastes full of subtle yet unexpected nuances.

We source the majority of our products locally. In the case of vegetables and garden produce, we are in direct contact with the grower. This creates a working synergy based on shared decisions at each crucial moment in the life of the product: planting, growing and harvesting, thus establishing a sustainable relationship between the restaurant, the producer and the land”

Besides his flagship restaurant, Camarena is also behind Canalla Bistro and its changing eclectic and cosmopolitan menu; Central Bar, which exclusively uses ‘kilometre zero’ products from Valencia’s rightly famous Central Market where it is located.