Almost 2,000 kilometers separate two of the best restaurants in the world: Mirazur, in Menton, France —the best to be exact, according to The World's 50 Best—, and Aponiente, in Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz. A distance that disappeared on June 6. In the room of the three stars from Cadiz, presided over by the statue of a mermaid, a 20-course menu prepared by four hands by Mauro Colagreco and Ángel León was served with the sea and the moon as the common thread, "the sources of inspiration" of both cooks, says León. An event at the price of 350 euros the cover that hung the complete poster in 24 hours. An appointment "special, ephemeral, that only happens once" points out the Spanish chef, and unique. This has been the first service carried out in his premises under this formula in which some restaurants have been working successfully for some time, and others have seen a way to fill tables again since the pandemic began.

"The important thing is that people go back to where they are made to enjoy it and that we chefs can continue giving blessed glory to our guests, that people go back to dipping bread and drinking wine," says León. That the client returns, has fun and does gastronomic tourism without leaving his city. "Since we can't travel, we want to give customers that possibility," explains Mario Payán, from Kappo in Madrid, who also sees the Kappo & Friends days as a way to help each other "everyone." Payán, known for his mastery of sushi, answers by phone after two hours cleaning the fish that will serve as the main ingredient of his Japanese cuisine that day. Last March he received Juanlu Fernández, from Lú Cocina y Alma (one Michelin star) and this week he has held a second edition with Masaki Sugisaki, from London's Dinings SW3 as a guest. "The ingredients are sent to me beforehand to ensure the availability of the products, which is what worries us the most when we leave our habitat," he says.

Since 2014, Javier Goya has turned this kind of “healthy competition” between two chefs —as he calls it— into one of the attractions of Triciclo, his restaurant group. In each of the meetings he holds at the Sua grill, Goya fills the tables almost at the same time that he promotes the event via WhatsApp. "During the week it's not so easy to fill up and in this way I get billing that I wouldn't do under normal circumstances," says Goya. He, who practices a versatile and open kitchen, also sees in this formula a professional challenge. “I compete not to be worse. Those who come, even if I have nothing and they have a star, are also tense, ”he jokes with a laugh. The last one with whom he has shared service was Aitor Arregi, from Elkano (Guetaria), and he is already planning to join Marian Reguera (Taberna Verdejo), Ignacio Solana (Solana) and Pedro Sánchez (Bagá). And in addition, he reveals: at the end of the year he will put his experience at the service of "a very powerful space on a main street in Madrid, with a restaurant for 250 people, where four hands will be made continuously," he says, without revealing why complete the project.

The so-called gastronomic restaurants concentrate most of these evenings, but the format has reached businesses with a more informal cuisine such as Mawey Taco Bar, a Mexican food place a few meters from Madrid's Gran Vía. There, Fernando Carrasco and Julio Barros celebrate what they call "cockfights", combats for two with the stove as a ring that they have been carrying out regularly for three years and in which they have already faced the chefs of Tres por cuatro, Kitchen 154 and Tampu, among others. And always, in front of a packed house. "We put in common the main raw materials of each dish so as not to repeat and that everything is quite harmonious," says Carrasco, who recognizes the usefulness of this type of event to "move in the press and social networks." For a price of 38 euros per person, the next dinner held side by side with the chefs of the Galician Morgana, in Madrid, includes, for example, a welcome cocktail, Yucatecan octopus or wagyu brisket tacos, and Galician stew brioche.

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Limited almost exclusively to fast food, strict lockdowns during the pandemic have made delivery an alternative sales channel even for high-end restaurants, including the first joint home delivery of two Michelin-starred chefs. Specifically, four between the two. Ramón Freixa and Paco Roncero began developing the idea before the outbreak of the pandemic, but it was not until May 2020 that they launched Cuatromanos together with Uber Eats. “They contacted us separately and we thought, why are we going to fight individually?” Roncero recalls. The result was a menu designed from scratch by both. “We did a great study and we have learned a lot in terms of plating, temperatures and packaging [packaging the products]. We got fully involved in the production chain to be able to really experiment”, said Roncero, who confesses having had to turn off the phone at some point during the first days due to the impossibility of attending to all the orders. "We made between 36 and 40 kilos of Russian salad and it was all sold."

Even with the capacity restrictions in force in some communities, there are those who wait for a return to normality to try to make up for lost time —and money—. Just over a year ago, Pilar Sancerni, from the El Alambique restaurant in the capital of Huesca, started a WhatsApp group to promote an idea together with four other cooks and a sommelier: to get together, each time in one of their kitchens, to make a set menu. The four hands carried further. “I thought it was a nice idea to have women cooks and restaurant women from Huesca so that we could gain visibility. There are many chefs and they are always talked about”, says Sancerni on the other end of the phone.

An initiative designed to "get ahead", which they hope to launch in September and which will take place during the week. "Each one of us will prepare a dish that we will comment on to the customers," she adds, as spokesperson for the group that she forms with Ana Acin (Espacio N), María Belén Arcos (Posada Abadía de Siétamo), Mariola Oriol (Café bar El Punto), Paulina Amieva (Café Villa Campa) and Beatriz Allué (The Origin). "We have to get ahead no matter what," concludes Sancerni, even with the restaurant closed and waiting to move this summer to a new location.