Sebastian Frank (Hováth**, Berlin) closed the first day of talks at this 26th edition of San Sebastian Gastronomika - Euskadi Basque Country. He focused on his passion for vegetables, a conviction that will lead him to stop cooking meat and fish in his restaurant in 2022.

Feeling that he is in the 'Champions League of cooking', sharing the stage with some of the best chefs in the world, Frank explained that when he started working as a chef, it was very important to understand what he liked and didn't like. We can all have access to the coolest and the best, to the product we want, but we have to know which ones we want to work with and which ones we don't," he summed up. So one of his first decisions was to stop working with ingredients that had nothing to do with his Austrian roots.

The task of discovering a fetish product with which to compose an epoch-making dish in your restaurant is never easy, and if it is not, just ask him. He started working with celeriac in 2011 and it took him three and a half years to find the formula. In fact, at Hováth they leave the celeriac in water, salt and flour for two years until they reach the point "with a very intense umami" that Frank dreamed of.

In his desire to "give value to simple ingredients", the chef experienced a personal moment of inner struggle in which "I wanted to show my soul, my roots. And then I realised that it is not the ingredients that are most important, but the ideas and the feelings. And Frank gave several examples of the importance of a bite or a drink in a very specific situation or in another: "The moment is very important, the experience, because food reminds us of sensations and with it you can touch other people's souls. For this, I think vegetables are the best, bearing in mind, of course, that every chef is different.

The chef mentions mushrooms as one of his favourite products because they give a flavour similar to foie gras, or dehydrated and rehydrated pumpkin and courgettes to give a texture similar to cuttlefish. A little white wine, some parsley... and it will remind us of a fish dish without containing it.

At the end of his talk, he left us with an interesting thought. As a chef, I ask myself questions. There are wonderful chefs with incredible techniques, but I know that I am not going to be a new Ferran Adrià because I can only reflect on myself. I want to be unique and give myself an answer through my dishes, because we are all unique,' he concludes.