Juan Aceituno

The Path

Extra virgin olive oil sits at the center of Juan Aceituno’s cooking in Jaén, Spain, not as a supporting fat but as the base language of the kitchen. He names it plainly: “Without extra virgin olive oil, my cooking would make no sense; I wouldn't know how to cook.” That dependence is tied to family memory, so the work reads as inherited practice rather than concept. The result is a style that is direct, intimate, and built from what has been lived before it is plated. Aceituno’s formation began with Prácticas de cocina at Restaurante Las Rejas in Las Pedroñeras (Cuenca), where repetition, timing, and prep discipline formed the first structure of the craft. The next step came as cook at Restaurante Rey de Copas in Ribera Alta (Alcalá la Real), a post that added refinement and forward motion to the work. That progression now sits inside Dama Juana, the restaurant he founded and now steers as Head Chef, where authorship is carried by technique rather than display.

The Work Today

Family memory is the organizing principle at Dama Juana, the restaurant Juan Aceituno founded in Jaén. He frames the project as tribute: “In our restaurant, we pay tribute to the memory of my grandmother, Juana \"La chucha\".” The kitchen uses remembrance as method, drawing on domestic experience, anecdote, and flavor as working material rather than decorative reference. The food is built to carry narrative weight without losing its footing in the plate. Aceituno says, “We seek to transmit the experiences, anecdotes, and flavors that I shared with her,” and that aim gives the cooking its register: specific, personal, and grounded in place. “My dishes are full of history and memories,” he adds, and at Dama Juana that history is treated as something to be worked, shaped, and served.

Signature

Juan's signature dishes include MENÚ MADRE, MENÚ MARÍA, MENÚ TRIANA, Finca la Parrilla, and Otiñar. Together, they sketch the contours of his kitchen: attentive, personal, and shaped by names that feel anchored in meaning.

In Their Words “Without extra virgin olive oil, my cooking would make no sense; I wouldn't know how to cook.” “In our restaurant, we pay tribute to the memory of my grandmother, Juana \"La chucha\".”