To hone talent for Piripi, Chef Najat Kaanache rallies a group of culinary experts to live and work together under one roof.
Chef Najat Kaanache helms the kitchen at Piripi in Coral Gables as well as in the home the staff shares in Kendall.
The table is set for what looks like a feast for a very big family—14 place settings to be exact. Spanish-Basque chef Najat Kaanache motions to her team that it’s time to eat, and the young stagiaires—or culinary apprentices—hustle in and out of the kitchen, trailing aromas of Northern Spain, including saffron and mushrooms. However, this is not a tasting table for customers; it’s for the cooks themselves. Not only do they all work together at Piripi (a Spanish word describing a state of dreamlike exuberance), Kaanache’s new restaurant in Village of Merrick Park; they also live together under one roof. These stagiaires are young chefs who left their lives in Spain and Greece to learn from Kaanache in the US.
Kaanache and some of the staff taking a break from tilling the tomato garden at the “chef house.”
The paella on which everyone is feasting is one that guests can expect to find on the menu at Piripi, which is decidedly casual and laid-back despite its impressive 1,200-bottle wine list and its address in one of Coral Gables’ most coveted retail compounds. Kaanache and her team are moving beyond molecular gastronomy to return to the basics of the rustic cuisine found in her hometown of San Sebastian at its popular pintxos, the Basque version of tapas bars. Expect dishes such as Happy Sea Bass with crispy skin, white asparagus “truffle,” and roasted cherry tomatoes; or Harvest Moon Gazpacho, marrying watermelon and heirloom tomato in a zesty broth.
For this unusual arrangement, Kaanache might be the perfect teacher. She’s been to more than 29 countries to work in some of the best restaurants in the world, such as El Bulli, Alinea, French Laundry, Per Se, and Noma. Her journey is one of storied instructors and daunting challenges. As a woman of Moroccan descent, she had to fight for acceptance in San Sebastian as a child. Kaanache learned to find what she calls a “Zen moment” whenever an obstacle appeared, and grew up to become a TV actress in Spain. Ultimately, her love for food prevailed, pushing her to tackle culinary school and the fine-dining hierarchy. “At El Bulli, I had 51 lions [her word for chefs] staring at me,” Kaanache says of her stint at Ferran Adria’s bastion of haute cuisine before it closed in 2011. “I had to fly like the wind to be the fastest and prove why I deserved to be there.”
Cronuts de gamba con crema de mejillón (shrimp cronuts with mussel cream) cooking.
Prior to that, while apprenticing at Noma in Copenhagen, she fought a battle with breast cancer—a setback that didn’t slow her down. After receiving treatment in Holland, she flew directly to Chicago to apprentice at Alinea, the restaurant famed for its 20-course seasonal tasting menus and one of only 12 in the US to earn a Michelin three-star rating. “I put my white jacket on and I felt alive,” she says.
As for having all her chefs live together in one house, Kaanache calls it a “test.” The sprawling 10-bedroom home that sleeps 21 sits on an acre of land in a residential neighborhood near Kendall, where lush tropical plants separate the chefs from the outside world. The Piripi team tries to eat together at least every Sunday night, when the restaurant is closed for business. As the stagiaires sit down to eat their octopus-laden paella, Greek stagiaire Valantis Ionnis says he doesn’t mind living with his boss, and Eric Lobo, from Spain, refers to her as “the mother of the house,” from across the table.
They all applaud themselves before eating. FROM LEFT: Piripi partner Charles Accivatti, Kaanache, stagiaire Lola Rodriguez, and Wine Director Matthew Reiser.
Although from an American perspective this kind of intensive, all-consuming training might seem a bit much, in Europe it’s standard for cooks to live together. Kaanache takes it a step further by also living with her apprentices, to be “vulnerable” to her team. “We need to know each other well in the restaurant and in the house,” says the chef, whose team members stay indefinitely.
Strict house rules are generally enforced: No drinking, no smoking near the house, no shoes inside, no walking around in boxers, and no leaving the couch without fluffing the pillows, to cite a few of the directives. As for sleeping arrangements, it’s two to a room. The house is an easy five minutes from the Metrorail, three stops from Merrick Place. There’s not a lot of downtime, but there’s a pool in the backyard for a quick dip and room to plant and harvest tomatoes. 320 San Lorenzo Ave., Ste. 1315, 305-666- 6766