Paco Perez

The Path

Training at Michel Guérard gave Paco Perez an early grounding in precision and ambition. That formation shows in the attention to detail and in the sense that each plate is considered before it leaves the kitchen. Today, he is chef patron of Miramar, chef of Enoteca Paco Pérez (since 2008), and chef of 5-Cinco. Across those roles, the cooking stays recognizably his: polished without stiffness, elegant while still pulled toward the textures of weather, coastline, and landscape. The work is built from place. Alt Empordà functions not only as a point of reference in Paco Perez’s thinking, but as the source material for it. In the kitchen, the region’s vocabulary is not copied literally so much as translated—shifted, rearranged, and given another form while keeping its accent intact.

The Work Today

“It’s about cooking with soul and taking dreams to new levels. It’s expressing the emotion of sea smells early one morning; uncovering the magic of a heavy storm; extracting the Earth’s soul from the sea.” That line describes the present work clearly: vivid, elemental, and controlled. The language carries the same atmosphere as the plates—briny air, changing skies, wet stone, and the pull between calm and force. The aim is not spectacle for its own sake, but compression: to turn sensation into something that can be held, tasted, and remembered. The result feels intimate even when it is intricate, and expansive even when it is disciplined. Balance is central here, with mar i muntanya used as a framework for contrast rather than a fixed formula. The sea remains near the mountain, and the mountain never fully leaves the sea. In that exchange, Perez makes room for clarity and surprise, and for dishes that hold tradition while opening onto something less predictable.

Signature

Paco's signature dishes include Mar d’Amunt, Les Assutzenes, and Horitzó. The titles point toward horizon, place, and passage, which suits a body of work that treats landscape as more than backdrop. These signatures do the practical job of identifying the cook, but they also show how his thinking moves: from terrain to form, and from form back to terrain.

In Their Words “It’s about cooking with soul and taking dreams to new levels. It’s expressing the emotion of sea smells early one morning; uncovering the magic of a heavy storm; extracting the Earth’s soul from the sea.” “I believe great cuisine is born of place, simplicity and daring. I cook to bring the Alt Empordà's flavors into unexpected forms.” Taken together, the lines map the method: grounded in place, shaped by feeling, and willing to change form. The precision in the wording matches the precision in the cooking. Each dish is asked to do more than feed; it should also register weather, shoreline, memory, and the physical world around them.

Acclaim

Paco's honors include Two Michelin stars, Two Michelin stars, and one Michelin star. The repeated recognition points to a career marked by consistency as much as ambition. That combination—technical rigor, emotional charge, and fidelity to place—defines the staying power of Paco Perez’s cuisine.