Nacho Romero

The Path

The work starts with an early and fixed relation to cooking: not as a phase, but as a direction that was already set. Nacho Romero trained at CdT de Valencia, where instinct was given structure and a personal certainty was turned into kitchen discipline. That training sits at the base of a career built on intent, with each step arranged around a clear idea of what the work should be. Today, Nacho Romero is chef and owner of Kaymus and chef of La Barra de Kaymus. Those roles place authorship and daily operation in the same hands, which is often where a restaurant’s language stays most consistent. The name now moves across more than one setting, with each one carrying the same point of view in a different register.

The Work Today

At La Barra de Kaymus in València, the cooking is framed as a meditated menu based on tradition and product. That tells you where the kitchen chooses to stand: close to recognizable roots, with attention on what the ingredient already offers and on the handling required to keep it clear. The result is measured rather than declarative, with technique serving the plate instead of dominating it. The room matters here as much as the menu. In a more open street-facing bar setting, La Barra de Kaymus lets service, movement, and the street itself enter the dining experience. The counter format changes the rhythm of the meal, making the exchange around the bar part of the same conversation as the food. Traditional Spanish and Mediterranean cuisine defines the restaurant’s specialty, keeping the work anchored in familiar regional forms. That choice gives the kitchen a direct line to established flavors and methods, where recognition comes from precision, timing, and respect for product rather than from invention for its own sake. The two current roles at La Barra de Kaymus in València are best read together: chef and owner at Kaymus, and chef at La Barra de Kaymus. Between them, Nacho Romero’s work is presented as a single practice expressed through a house and its bar, each version extending the same culinary logic into a different kind of service.

In Their Words “I was born loving cooking. I do not conceive any other way of life. From the beginning I knew what I wanted, and I only lacked how and when. Both things came together.”