His cuisine invites you to eat with the rhythm of nature, with what the earth gives us, depending on the season.
His two restaurants, Urko and Anker, aim to justify the quality and creativity of the cuisine in Ecuador. Maldonado delves into the roots of the most authentic version of Ecuadorian gastronomy through a unique experience that reflects the worldview of the ancient inhabitants of his country.
Daniel, when and how did you realize that cooking was your life's purpose?
I grew up in the countryside, going up mountains and hills on a horse since I was 4. Since my childhood, the connection with nature and food has been very important to me. In my family, celebrations and trips have revolved around food. It has always been very common to gather together around a certain dish and celebrate, and I've been cooking since I was 12.
Is a good chef born or made?
In my case, I studied industrial engineering because I think it is a career that gives you a global vision of management across multiple projects. I spent a few years working as an engineer, but I got bored of sitting in front of a computer for so many hours.
Then I traveled to Spain to do a master's degree related to engineering and, once there, in Seville, I combined my studies with others of hospitality and cooking, which I enjoyed much more. I was working in different restaurants until a back problem forced me to return to Ecuador.
How was Urko born? The name means "mountain". Why that name?
I returned to Ecuador in 2014 with the concept of Urko in my head. I realized that my country lacked a gastronomic concept that would elevate local gastronomy to the level of what other countries like Peru had done, recovering the flavors of historic and traditional recipes.
The name Urko, which, as you say, means mountain, refers to the gastronomic concept itself and the architecture of the restaurant premises, where customers are offered an integrated experience in a space with different heights and levels, in which different things happen.
What is Urko's gastronomic concept?
First of all, Urko is already a different space in terms of talent management and leadership. Unlike most kitchens, we opt for a horizontal hierarchy in which everyone's opinion is taken into account, down to the last trainee chef. It is a space where the whole team develops professionally while we grow as people. We are a family.
Regarding gastronomy, at Urko, we understand food as an experience of connection with the product and the identity of a people, in this case, Ecuador.
At Urko, you talk about creative cuisine based on the Andean cosmovision and the "Raymis"...what are they?
In 2018, we made an important change in the concept of Urko after a creative process of 3 months and after having traveled a lot around the country, seeing what was cooked in each region and the different local products and flavors, connecting with different places, and strengthening the bond with the team.
The "Raymis" are the ancestral festivals celebrated by our ancestors, coinciding with the changing seasons, with the solstices and equinoxes. In each season, they grew and ate specific products, and that is what inspired us to work with a main product around which we developed the concept of the dish.
What would be some examples of these dishes inspired by the "Raymis"?
In the harvest season, for example, we cook a dish of "edible earth" with freshly harvested potatoes and a piece of guinea pig meat covered by a foam of the Andean tuber called oca. In the season of germination, we offer a broth of onions with sprouts from our own garden. In the "Raymi" of flowering, we use many fresh flowers in our dishes.
And some of your favorite dishes?
I would say that one of the dishes that best symbolizes the concept of Urko is a dessert in the shape of Chakana, the Andean cross where the 4 seasons are represented and explained. We made this cross as a purple corn cookie with that square cross shape, and with products that represent each season in each of the parts.
What are the flavors of your childhood?
Food serves to connect with the memory of the past, and, at Urko, we bring to the table the culinary memories of each of the team members. In my case, I would say soups. There are about 150 recipes of soups and stews in Ecuador. Once a month, we get together with my family to eat a different soup. One of our discoveries has been a soup cooked with "chuño", a type of flour made from the starch of sun-dried potatoes.
Eating at Urko is a journey in itself
The menu we offer at Urko conceives the dining experience as a whole and as a journey into the culinary memory and local culture of Ecuador. The experience begins in our rooftop garden, where we grow between 60 and 80 different plants. That is when we start explaining the Raymis philosophy to our customers, and when they get to taste some initial appetizers.
What do you pair the different dishes with?
Although in Ecuador there is no wine culture, we always offer white and red wine, but we propose fermented beverages that represent our land, such as fruit wines, and traditional drinks like "chicha de jora", made from fermented sweet corn. A few months ago, we started to brew our own beer. We make one with bitter cocoa shells, which is very popular with our customers.
Tell us about your other restaurant, Anker.
Anker was born as a restaurant in the Galapagos, with a more informal concept and a "Zero Waste" menu in which each dish represented an island. After the outbreak of the pandemic, we were forced to close the restaurant there, and we have moved it to Quito, in the same building as Urko.
Anker's philosophy is based on sustainability, local products, community, circular economy, and zero waste. It is a conscious restaurant concept that would be replicable in other countries in Latin America and Spain, something we are considering for the future.
The Anker concept is based on sustainable and "zero waste" gastronomy in which only local products are used in the preparation of the dishes. These ingredients are purchased from local suppliers, generating a circular economy that benefits the local community.
Nowadays, there is a movement toward S.L.O.W. (Sustainable, Local, Organic, and Whole). Would you say that haute cuisine is going in that direction?
It certainly has to go that way. In 2018, we created "Jama," a platform to promote the SLOW Food movement and responsible cooking. When we discovered and understood the philosophy of the "Raymis," we became much more conscious as a team on a personal level, and we were encouraged to create this platform.
Could you define your gastronomic philosophy in one word?
Local. This would be the word, understood as a concept that invites us to go inside ourselves and the kitchen. Localness makes us understand sustainability, the traceability of products, and see that we are part of a community. I see food as an instrument for internal and social change.
Would you like to be the first Ecuadorian Michelin star?
This year we were nominated in the "50 best discovery restaurants" and I appreciate it, but, at the same time, I think that cooking loses meaning when it becomes a competition of egos. The good thing about having a Michelin star is that it allows you to fill the restaurant and have more means to invest in new projects.
What are Daniel Maldonado's favorite dishes?
There are two dishes that have the ability to evoke and relive memories from my childhood. One is milanesa (battered beef) with baked mashed potatoes and beet salad. And the other, a recipe of my mother's, made with sirloin steak fried in butter on bread toast, with mashed spinach and fried egg on top.
