United for friendship and love of good food, four Spaniards have earned a place in the competitive food industry in New York nothing less than with several hamburgers , with which they have won palates and several awards for their work.
Victor Ortega, with experience in hospitality, and chef Jaime Guardiola, who had come to New York in 2008 with the idea of opening a Spanish restaurant, launched the project in 2013.
« ; If you go somewhere, go to the capital of the world.If you hit it, hit it hard and if you crash, you crash the same in any place» ;, says Victor, the most talkative and who manages the three restaurants that have already opened in the Big Apple.
After several months of evaluating the market chose to buy Black Iron Burger that was already established, although it had been neglected by its owner because he had other businesses.
So he began his gastronomic adventure in the East Village , at Pedro Ruiz Ocejo and Luis Carlos Garcia, who had studied like Guardiola at the culinary school in Seville, joined later.
They admit that they embarked on this project with great desire but also with fear of how the public I welcome that four Sevillians were behind such an emblematic meal of this country as the hamburger.
« Challenge was everything since we came from Spain» ;, Ortega adds during the interview with Efe at lunchtime in its crowded restaurant in the Midtown Manhattan .
« When we entered the East Village the business was losing money.The neighborhood turned its back on us because they had done (the past administration) some bad things in recent years and people were not happy and it was also in moments in which the city was still recovering from the scourge of Hurricane Sandy.Winning us to the neighborhood cost us work» ;, remember.
However, they were not discouraged and began by changing the menu to include quality meat Without antibiotics or hormones, fresh vegetables and potatoes,« nothing frozen» ;, they say, and give diners a taste to know they liked it.
Luis Carlos intervenes to emphasize that« based on working hard, inventing, giving people a taste (their hamburgers), giving them quality and good service » They went ahead in the small restaurant with room for 30 people in the Village.
The group faced their second litmus test when they opened their second restaurant in Midtown, a few steps from the bustling square of Times Square .
« When we opened here it was the litmus test and it cost us to start it because nobody knew you, it is an office area and the weekend there is nobody and we had to do a lot I work to win the neighborhood.Tourists gradually began to come» ;, also highlights Victor.
Pedro and Carlos point out that their gastronomic proposal to give a good product of natural meat, prepare the salsa that serve its customers, to use fresh products , I end up conquering and maintaining their customers.
Un e Slow in its menu is the presence of Mediterranean food.They do not forget where they come from, they say.If they have included the iberica hamburger , which among its ingredients has its protagonist, the Iberian ham, cheese Manchego and egg, as well as aioli potatoes.
« It is our Mediterranean idea that everything has to be the best product, well made and give the customer the best 39; Victor adds with satisfaction.
Six years after starting the project, they have the three headquarters of hamburgers« gourmet» and expansion plans in the Big Apple, while assessing whether take a leap to Chicago (Illinois).
Pedro says that in his success it is« fundamental» the work of the more than 70 employees they have, from different countries.
The effort and« flavors» Of these Sevillians accumulates four awards from the prestigious Zagat magazine, of restaurant criticism, such as « the best hamburger» in the city for four consecutive years and another three by TripAdvisor.
But one that fills them with pride is that of the famous Spanish chef Jose Andres, who after hearing about them, visited them and then wrote on his Twitter account that they were not only his favorite New York burgers, but they could be the best in the US» ;.
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