Pau Sintes

Menorca, European Region of Gastronomy awarded 2022
Spain

“My goal in the short term is to learn from the great chefs by interning at their restaurants and continuing to study sustainable gastronomy. In the long term, I want to set up a small restaurant in my village that promotes the produce, farmers, and artisans of Menorca.”

Pau Sintes is the young chef who represented Menorca, European Region of Gastronomy awarded 2022 at the European Young Chef Award 2022 and won 1st prize.

Pau is 22 years old and has recently completed a degree in Culinary and Gastronomic Sciences at CETT-UB, in Barcelona. Cooking and science have always been his passions, and over the past four years he has been able to merge the two to understand what happens during the culinary process.

Pau lives in the small Menorcan village of Alaior. His family has always been surrounded by good quality produce, which for him is the most important thing in gastronomy. His grandmother had the only wood-burning oven in the village, where everyone would go and cook their meals, as well as bake bread and other typical pastries. His father had a small vegetable garden, which provided us with seasonal organic produce all year round. His family has a llaüt (small traditional boat in Menorca) so sometimes, when the weather is good, they go out fishing, looking to catch the different types of fish that live around our island, which then they fry or stew.

Pau loves picking all the things that nature gives us of its own accord at any given time, like wild asparagus, capers, wild berries, mushrooms and fungi, snails, … He thinks that it is because of the great admiration he has for all this produce, and how his mother and grandmother would lovingly prepare it, that he decided to be a chef.

Pau’s inspiration when creating his dishes comes mainly from his personal experiences and stories he has been told, nature, and music.

Pau believes that the European Young Chef Award is a great opportunity to raise the profile of young chefs, not only those of them who take part in competitions, but all those who are working day in day out in restaurants, and to encourage new generations to train as chefs, which is a wonderful profession and needs properly trained people.