Chef of the Week: Chef Andrés Torres, Casa Nova
Chef Andrés Torres has lived a life unlike almost anyone else in the culinary world. Before earning a Michelin Star and Michelin Green Star for his restaurant Casa Nova, he spent years covering wars in some of the world’s most dangerous regions, experiences that profoundly reshaped his understanding of food, sustainability, and humanity.
Today, Torres channels those lessons into one of Europe’s most remarkable dining destinations. At Casa Nova, nearly everything—from the bread, honey, and vegetables to the salt and even the tableware—is produced on-site, while a portion of the restaurant’s revenue supports humanitarian projects through the NGO he founded. In this week’s Chef of the Week, he reflects on his extraordinary journey from conflict zones to the kitchen, the philosophy behind his self-sufficient restaurant, and why cooking can be a powerful force for change.
1. You spent years working as a war correspondent before becoming a chef. What inspired such an unusual career transition?
I started as a freelance war reporter at 17, covering conflicts in Libya, Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, and the former Yugoslavia. I also spent time living in India, Cambodia, and the Peruvian Andes. Through that work, I encountered communities where food was not a lifestyle choice or a cultural statement but survival.
Through my work, I encountered communities where food was not a lifestyle choice or a cultural statement but survival.
I came to understand how conflict affected local food ecosystems, and I decided the best way to convey that to people was not through journalism but through cooking. Journalism had always been my source of inspiration, the way I opened up and communicated what I was seeing. But after years in the field, I realised that the most honest thing I could do was build something rooted in those experiences, something people could actually taste and feel.
2. Was there a particular moment during your reporting career that changed the way you viewed food and its role in people’s lives?
After working in Salahonda, on Colombia’s Pacific coast, I came back deeply unsettled. I had put myself at risk to get stories published elsewhere, and I started asking whether that was enough. That was a turning point. I had seen communities where food was either weaponised or simply absent, where a meal was not a pleasure but a political act. I came back knowing I had to do more than report it. That is when the idea of Global Humanitaria began to take shape, and eventually the idea of the restaurant too.
3. Casa Nova earned both a Michelin Star and a Michelin Green Star in 2025. What did receiving these distinctions mean to you and your team?
The team is only seven people – we grow, cook, and serve everything ourselves. There are no waiters; everyone who brings food to the table can also explain how and why it was made. So the recognition means a great deal, but what it really does is confirm that you do not have to choose between rigour in the kitchen and rigour about where that food comes from.
4. Casa Nova is one of the most unique restaurants in Europe. What was your vision when you first opened it?
About 20 years ago I bought an old chicken farm surrounded by vineyards near Barcelona as somewhere to recover between trips. I started cooking for friends, things like Peruvian chuños, freeze-dried potatoes. The reputation spread by word of mouth until strangers were knocking on the door asking to be fed.
So in 2015 I opened Casa Nova properly. The vision was always intimacy. It’s like you’re coming to my house to eat. I want it to be a place of pilgrimage, where you eat and think about the world. This is not a business. I wanted diners to arrive expecting a meal and leave thinking about what happens beyond their own table.
5. Your restaurant is nearly self-sufficient, producing everything from bread and honey to salt and tableware. What inspired this approach?
The communities I encountered during my years of reporting. I bake bread in a wood-fired oven in the way the Quechua-speaking peoples of Peru do, roast coffee as Colombian tribes do, and make chocolate using methods I learnt in Guatemala. These are techniques that have worked for centuries because they respect what is available.
So we have egg-laying hens, beehives producing lavender and rosemary-infused honey, and a vegetable garden. Kitchen scraps are composted and used to fertilise the next season’s crops. Most of our energy comes from solar panels, and we collect rainwater in barrels that previously matured wine. For our salt, I go out in a boat and collect seawater from the Mediterranean. My wife makes the plates. I built my own drying room and smokehouse rather than using the dehydrators most high-end kitchens rely on. We try to cover what we can.
6. You’ve learnt from communities across Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Which lessons have had the biggest influence on your cooking?
What I learnt most is humility and gratitude. Technically, the most significant influences have come from communities in Peru, Guatemala, and Colombia. The Quechua methods of preserving food in extreme conditions, for example, or the Guatemalan approach to chocolate, the way fire is used in parts of Latin America not as a drama but as a practical tool.
Technically, the most significant influences have come from communities in Peru, Guatemala, and Colombia.
I have created and improved my dishes based on the experiences of visiting these communities. For me, the university is the street. The lesson is always the same: use what is there, waste nothing, and respect the process!
7. How would you describe your culinary style in a few words?
Rooted, honest, and borrowed from the world.
8. Is there a dish on your current menu that best represents your philosophy as a chef? What is the story behind it?
One dish that I would say reflects the approach well is our mojama: filleted, salt-cured tuna. It is a technique typical of coastal Spain, but we cure ours in the sun rather than using industrial drying equipment. The big factories cut tuna into slices and control the temperature and humidity mechanically, but we put it under the sun and it dries naturally. It takes longer and the result is different. Every element requires patience, minimum intervention, and maximum respect for the ingredient.
9. Catalan cuisine has a rich culinary heritage. What aspects of Catalan cooking do you most enjoy celebrating at Casa Nova?
The honesty of it – Catalan cooking has never been about performance. It is peasant food elevated by time and good land.
At Casa Nova we try to honour that directness. We work with what the season gives us. We do not try to substitute or imitate. We are quite lucky that the Penedès, where Casa Nova sits, is famed for its white wines, and that agricultural character runs through everything we cook.
10. Casa Nova directs its profits toward humanitarian projects. What motivated you to build a restaurant around that model?
Global Humanitaria has always operated quietly. For more than 30 years we never advertised what we were doing. The restaurant changed that. 20% of what the restaurant turns over goes directly to the NGO.
But the motivation was not to design a clever funding model. I had seen how food insecurity worked at close range, I had the skills to cook, and I had a place. At Casa Nova we have conversations about what is happening in the world, and 90% of diners leave asking what they can do and whether they can make a donation. The restaurant became a way of making the humanitarian work visible without turning it into a campaign.
11. Sustainability has become a buzzword in hospitality. In your view, what does genuine sustainability look like?
There is a lot of dishonesty out there, unfortunately. For me, sustainability is something very basic, it means not taking more than you need. Genuine sustainability is a daily discipline, not a marketing angle.
At Casa Nova we apply sustainability in a radical way, but we understand what that means through experience from the countries I travelled to as a war correspondent and through Global Humanitaria, where we see what genuine scarcity looks like. Solar panels and a vegetable garden are only a starting point.
12. You were awarded the Basque Culinary World Prize in 2024. How has that recognition influenced your work?
To be recognised for what we do at that level, by a jury of people I deeply respect, and to be spotlighted on a global stage was genuinely moving. The prize (€100,000) went straight into Global Humanitaria’s projects. That is probably the most direct answer to how it influenced the work: it funded more of it.
13. What advice would you give to young chefs who want to make a positive impact beyond the kitchen?
Go and see things before you decide what you want to cook. For me, the university is the street. Technique can be learnt anywhere, but context cannot. If you want your cooking to carry meaning, you need to know why food matters to the people you are cooking for and to the people who grew it.
Technique can be learnt anywhere, but context cannot.
Start with humility. Do not build a philosophy before you have built a relationship with your ingredients and with the communities behind them. The impact comes later, and naturally, if the foundation is real.
14. Finally, what’s one piece of advice or one cooking technique that every home cook can use to immediately improve their cooking?
Perhaps a bit niche but slow down and use fire properly. Most high-end restaurants use dehydrators and temperature-controlled devices. I built a drying room and smokehouse and let the sun and air do the work. At home the equivalent is patience with heat. Do not rush a pan, do not crowd it, and learn to read colour and smell rather than relying on a timer. Good cooking is mostly attention, not equipment.
Chef Andrés Torres
Casa Nova
Finca Cal Tòfol – Barri La Bleda, s/n 08731 Sant Martí Sarroca (BCN)
