The stage is clear

If Toño Perez’s life sounds like a classic case of what hard work and bidding your time can do to earn you a top spot on the culinary ladder, it’s because it really is. Since his youth, Perez always knew that he wanted to cook. “I was always fascinated with what went on in the kitchen at home, as well as the ritual of eating and sharing time around a table with friends and family,” he recalls. There were, however, few possibilities in the late 1970’s in Cáceres, a small provincial town where he grew up. He knew he had to go further afield to gain a wide range of culinary experiences.

While in his late teens, Perez worked during summer vacations with a number of famed Spanish chefs, starting at the bottom in the kitchens of Arzak in San Sebastian, at Jockey in central Madrid, which attracts the city’s upper crust and royalty, and El Bulli near Barcelona.

Perez’s dream to open his own restaurant materialised in 1986. Along with his childhood friend, José Polo, who shared his passion for fine food, they scraped together around 13 million Pesetas (S$179,000), through personal savings and a bank loan, to open Atrio Restaurante in a humble suburb of Cáceres just outside the medieval walls.

Excerpt from the September issue of epicure.