Atsushi Tanaka (AT*, Paris, France) knew he was going to be a chef from the very start. He realised this in his native Kobe (Japan) after he read a book by Pierre Gagnaire. “I'll work with him one day", he told himself. And that is what happened. Tanaka kicked off the Madrid Fusión 2022 talks on Tuesday with a tale of heavily influenced cuisine thanks to the baggage accumulated by a chef on the move - a six-year experience with the French genius, and stints with Quique Dacosta at the Quique Dacosta restaurant, Carme Ruscalleda at Sant Pau Tokyo, Rasmus Kofoed at Geranium. and Bjorn Frantzen at Frantzen.

You tot it all up, and you get cookery with a love of product, chromatic, minimalist cookery, especially minimalist. “I believe that Scandinavia is like Japan. It's something pure, minimalist, simple. And I like that", he told the congress auditorium. He demonstrated this on Tuesday in Madrid, and does it every day at his AT restaurant in Paris, which he opened in 2014 and which has already earned a Michelin star. A restaurant with little dining space, also minimalist, with a single sampling menu and only one meat dish.

“I like cooking seafood on coals, and make use of its iodine and big flavour", he explained as he began his cookery presentation. The fare was mussels and peas, bayleaf powder and mussel emulsion; oysters with sorrel and celeriac purée; an abalone (“It has lots of flavour. First I pre-cook it for five hours”) with morchellas and wild herbs, or a recipe "that's been on my menu since I opened the restaurant". The recipe uses the entire sea urchin, a wonderful dish for which he puts all the ingredients (in addition to the sea urchin, carrot and cocoa. “That gives me a mix of bitterness and acids”) into a bowl he then fills with mousse and a soup made from the sea urchin.

Tanaka finished off his talk by using butter to cook Normandy scallops ("The best in the world") and white asparagus "until they caramelise". He rounds off the recipe with a pil-pil sauce made with fish collagen only. Another photogenic "umami" recipe which the chef classifies in a cookery concept of few ingredients "in an attempt to keep the fish's iodine". A light cookery concept”.