Diego Gallegos, chef with 2 repsol suns, also chooses PIRA.
Pira offers me the functionality, spectacularity and taste that I am searching for my restaurant
Going to Sollo means entering a world of intense and surprising flavors. Its Michelin star, its newly acquired second Repsol sun, and the prize “Chef Revelación Madrid Fusión 2015”, already warn us that Sollo is more than a restaurant, it is an experience.
It only takes 5 minutes with his chef, Diego Gallegos to realize that cooking is his passion and he applies all his creativity with hard work and humility. Maybe that is why he is considered one of the chefs with biggest projection in Europe.
Diego Gallegos, the caviar chef
The Cónsula school opened his mind and showed him a very different gastronomy world
Diego Gallegos came to the world of cooking by chance, and it was a great luck that it was like that for those of us who like to taste new flavors. After a summer frying fish in a restaurant on the Malaguena coast, he decided to leave law school in Madrid to sign up for La Cónsula, the cooking school in Málaga.
La Cónsula opened his mind and showed him a very different world of gastronomy, allowing him to participate in different events and contests. With the money earned from the prizes, he was able to travel through Brazil, Peru and Spain to do his internships in different restaurants, until he runs out of money, point at which he decides to start working.
He starts working in the restaurant “Casa Piolas” in Algarinejo, where he moves as head chef, develops new dishes and meets the river sturgeon fish, which, over time, will become its flagship product.
Working in Algarinejo he decides to go to see the fish farm of the Riofrío company, something that does not leave him indifferent. After his visit to the fish farm he continues researching the caviar product on his own and after presenting it to Riofrío they decided to collaborate and open a research workshop specialized in sturgeon and caviar.
Despite having experience as a chef, Diego lacked experience as an entrepreneur. This comes from the hand of group Alea, leading a product business in Malaga. That’s when he considers that he has managed to complete the circle and feels prepared to run his own business.
El Sollo, a restaurant awarded with two Repsol suns
sausage, blood sausage or loin of lard created from river fish
With the idea of evolving as a chef and being able to implement all the ideas and creativity that he had in its mind, Diego Gallegos decides to create Sollo, a very small restaurant, that dit not mortgaged its life, and in which one could see reflected his research work with Riofrío and other companies in a real way, on a table, and with the continuous feedback of the client.
Together with his wife they decide to embark on the adventure of opening Sollo, the name comes from the fact that Sollo is how a sturgeon was named many years ago, so although we will speak about the “matanza Andaluza” traditional pig slaughter, do not expect meat in Sollo. After working on the remodeling of the business with his wife, it was time to open the restaurant.
In the beginning, Sollo started with a traditional menu, with an open concept, in which he introduced certain avant-garde techniques. Three months later he decided to risk and specialize in sturgeon, introducing the typical concepts of the “matanza Andaluza” but with a great particularity. In the Sollo you can taste sausage, blood sausage or loin of lard, all with the great difference that all these products are created from a river fish such as a sturgeon, tilapia or trout, seasoned in many of their dishes with caviar or products extracted from caviar.
All this assures us that going to Sollo is the same as going to live a unique experience that will fill the palate with new and powerful flavors.
Sollo and the concept of self-sufficiency
We must be aware about the need to reduce the impact on obtaining food
But Sollo not only surprises by its cuisine of extreme flavors, Diego Gallegos is a chef aware of the cooking impact on the environment, that is why in Sollo he introduces the concept of self-sufficiency, a fact that has led him to implement int the back of the restaurant a whole aquaponic system and an ecological garden.
Aquaponics is a system of sustainable production of plants and fish that combines traditional aquaculture, (based on the rearing of aquatic animals such as fish, crayfish and shrimp), with hydroponics, (growing plants in wáter), all united in a symbiotic environment. In these kind of systems, the aquaculture subsystem water feeds the hydroponic subsystem, which filters the water using its nutrients to grow plants and allows this water to return to the aquaculture subsystem.
Some of the fish species that Diego Gallegos produces in his restaurant are Tilapia, Bagre, Tenca or Pacu. We must bear in mind that these species are not in the market and can only be tasted in a special place like Sollo.
The caviar chef and the Cinema
Diego Gallegos enjoys cooking like nobody else, but he is openminded to everything, and as a film lover, he dares to make several documentaries, where he divulges his gastronomic proposal.
- “Sollo” where he invites us to discover his world, his inspiration in the traditional “matanza andaluza” applied to a sturgeon, and shares his creative, grastronomic processes and their results.
- “You are what you eat”, makes you think about the environmental situation, its connection with what we eat, the importance of knowing the quality and origin of our food, and the need to commit to a sustainable gastronomy.
Both documentaries have been reproduced by different fairs in different countries of the world, Spain, Ukraine, India, United States or Holland, are some of them.
Diego Gallegos chooses a PIRA Charcoal Oven
The customer loves to see what is done in the kitchen
The fact, that a chef like Diego Gallegos, who has created himself based on humility, enthusiasm, creativity and constant work, has chosen a Pira charcoal oven for its functionality, its spectacularity and its taste, can only make us proud and tell us that we are working in the right direction.
We leave you a small video where you can see the facilities of Sollo and the explanations of Diego Gallegos for which he has chosen PIRA, in this case a PIRA 70 LUX ED, to continue improving his cuisine and offering flavors that never cease to amaze its customers.