“Color Sessions”, an unforgettable gastronomic experience in Siete

Food is also color and in the Siete restaurant, its chef, Ricardo Martins, play with them like an artist. The dishes on the table evoke many figures: the razor clams, served with fermented chili peppers and chimichurri, look like piano keys about to start a jazz session; the sea urchin, made with black vinegar and dashi butter, has the texture and palette of a Van Gogh painting; and their famous cheesecake is a brilliant full moon that we want to eat in one bite. In front of the canvas that is his kitchen, the invitation is to take risks and be creative and an example of this are the “Color Sessions”, a proposal that he began in March to surprise his diners.

In alliance with The Glenlivet distillery, the restaurant organizes these events that, as its name suggests, have color as their differential and, as a connecting link, food, cocktails and music. Various personalities from the kitchen are invited to prepare the menu, which is renewed on each occasion. The first session, held on March 16, was with the Dominican mixologist Natasha Bermúdez, a member of the Peruvian restaurant Llama Inn, in New York. The color of that night was yellow. For the second session, Diego Oka, the Peruvian chef in charge of La Mar in Miami, who was assigned the color blue, returned home. The third time it was dyed purple to receive the Mexicans Bernardo Galindo and Alejandro Zarate de Campobaja, and for the fourth session, in which Provecho was present, the color chosen was crimson.

For a color as festive as this, chef Manuel Mendoza came from Barranquilla, recognized as one of the most outstanding in current Colombian gastronomy thanks to his Manuel Cocina restaurant. The chef is no stranger to Peruvian territory and he let us know as he joined us at the table to present some of his creations. “This is my fifth visit, but it is the most exciting because it is the first time I have come here to cook, and doing it in one of my favorite gastronomically speaking countries is a source of pride”, he said with the simple effectiveness that his preparations also have.

The menu of the night consisted of 9 dishes. Among those created by the Colombian chef, some tapas with catch of the day and a pickled melon that transported us to the Caribbean itself were unforgettable. The tapas were little baskets made with crispy phyllo dough, lemon fish, prawn mayonnaise with achiote and tamarind gel that make you make a plane reservation to try them again at the Barranquilla restaurant. The pickled melon is a novelty that was born from a challenge that the chef set himself.

“Before, when they asked me for a vegetarian dish, it made me angry,” acknowledged the cook who works a lot with red meat and seafood. “Today I think my best dishes are vegetarian. I challenged myself, I said to myself: ‘why does a vegetarian eat so badly if he can eat very well’. And as an example is this dish”, Mendoza said about the proposal that stands out for playing with three elements: the melon, which gives an acid touch; the cucumber, which provides the crispiness; and the aubergine that provides creaminess. All this “beautified”, as the chef says, by a dairy product: the famous costeño serum, a sour sauce typical of the Colombian Caribbean coast that reflects the influence of Lebanese migration in its food.

Paraphrasing Chavela Vargas, the cook assures that a Barranquillero can be born anywhere in the world, since it is a city marked by migration. “People came from all over Barranquilla and that is why it is a gastronomically diverse city. In addition, Colombia is a pantry of fruits and vegetables. We are the Caribbean Sea, but also the Pacific Ocean and rivers. We have a diversity of products that make things much easier for cooks, but the challenge is knowing how to use them well,” said Mendoza, who shows that he has that gift even in desserts. As proof of this, in the fourth “Color Sessions” he presented a Colombian tostada accompanied by a delicious ice cream made from banana cake and caramelized canchita (or crispeta, as they call it in Colombia) that takes flavor to another level.

All these delicacies can be paired with a cocktail proposal, where the colors chosen for each evening are much more marked. There are sweet proposals like the Mary Afi, made with Avelino Peruvian vermouth, The Glenlivet Founder’s whiskey, grapefruit soda and the Mexican touch of worm salt. But there are also proposals for more dominant flavors such as La Baja, made with sherry, cane and whiskey, which is the distinctive signature of all the drink proposals with the different lines of The Glenlivet.

The next “Color Sessions” will be announced soon on the social networks of the Siete restaurant. We recommend you make your reservation in time. The quotas are few, but the experience is vast.