You’ve already met chef Rubén Cabrera on a professional level, but now you’ll discover the personal and emotional side. Don’t miss the story of our chef and everything he wants to tell us about the team working at La Cúpula restaurant.

Tell us a little about yourself, about the story that brought you here.

I started at the Hotel Jardines de Nivaria in 1998 in the central kitchen. There I learnt the basics and the first steps. Little by little I worked my way up, until in 2007 I was offered a job at La Cúpula restaurant and I’ve been here ever since.

I had to start training in different areas, as well as taking part in almost all the national cooking competitions until I won the Spanish Championship, La Gamba Roja de Dénia. Just last year we received the first Sol from the prestigious Repsol Guide and I have also been nominated for best chef of the Canary Islands eight times, which I won only once and well, that’s a bit of my story here in the restaurant.

What are your long-term goals?

I’m not a person who looks at the long-term, I look at the present, to be happy with what I do and live day by day. To be happy today and tomorrow, because what good is it to be looking at the long term when you are working unhappily?

Experience has demonstrated to me, times when I was very obsessed with objectives, that sometimes things happen when they want them to and not when you want them to, so you get into a loop of something that doesn’t depend on you.

Is being the leader in the restaurant “La Cúpula” your greatest achievement?

No, I don’t think it is my greatest achievement because I feel that there are more important things than work, such as family, personal growth and living day by day.

Can you define your team in one word?

One word is not enough, but the team is always hard-working and competent.

What do you feel when you see your team working? Pride, joy, peace…?

If they are doing well, you feel pride, you say: “They are professionals… they are doing so well… this is like silk“, but in the kitchen it’s different, you only notice when you see something wrong, that’s when the alarm goes off and you start to get angry. Sometimes you see them doing amazing, they’re doing the right thing and other times you start to wonder where did this come from?

What do you feel you teach your teammates?

Well, within the team there are people who have more and less experience. So what I am going to contribute to some will be much more than to others, according to the degree of experience they have. There are those who have been in the kitchen for 20 years, those who have three, those who have one, so I bring experience, knowledge and leadership.

But it is true that there are people who have more experience, who already know directly what they have to do, and others that you have to be more on top of them to train them as professionals.

Now you know a little more about the leader of our cuisine and signature menu, would you like to meet the rest of the team?

La Cúpula, the signature restaurant located in the Jardines de Nivaria Hotel, has been under the management of Rubén Cabrera since November 2007, offering diners unique and creative dishes, mixing local and international products. We want you to get to know our chef in detail.

Why do you like this job?

What I like the most is creating dishes, everything that is creating things that are not established as a traditional recipe. So, what I really like is creativity, innovating in the kitchen and making each dish unique.

How do you define success?

I wouldn’t know how to define success, because I don’t think I’m ready for it, I don’t consider myself to have been successful or because it doesn’t fit into my way of understanding what I do, for me what I do is my job and I like it. In other words, I don’t consider that we have been successful because we have a Sol or because I was champion at the time, I think we are talking about other people’s success.

If you don’t define your work as successful, what word would you use?

I see it as personal satisfaction when I see the customers who come to enjoy the food and leave the restaurant satisfied.

How do you define failure?

I think we are talking about a different kind of failure, because we don’t fail when we make mistakes. Not getting it right or not doing it well, or a customer not liking a dish is a circumstance because there are so many tastes, so many ways of looking at food that what seems wonderful to you seems a little less wonderful to someone else. So failure in the kitchen, I don’t see it.

What did you learn from this particular job?

Well, in the job at La Cúpula, I learned that you have to be demanding, that you always have to be at your best, because the client’s standards with you are going to be very high and you always have to be very alert to improve. Don’t stay at a standstill in order to continue to prosper and know that what seems fantastic to you today and you think is very good, maybe in a year’s time is a bit out of date, so you have to keep updating yourself, improving and pushing yourself.

If you could have the perfect job, what would it be?

For me the job I have is perfect and many people would like to work in a place where they can have creative freedom and where you are valued for what you do, in that respect I am very happy.

What is your greatest achievement being the Chef of “La Cúpula”?

The greatest achievement that I think I have been able to obtain in the restaurant is that people recognise you for a specific job, that is, that you have specialised in a job and that everyone when they see one of your dishes says: “No, that dish is from La Cúpula“. That people identify you by a type of cuisine, by a type of decoration on the plate and that you feel that your “brand” is recognised.

To be continued…