As if things couldn’t get any better in Cancun, now the luxury all-inclusive resort Paradisus Cancun brings one of the world’s best chefs to its home.
Martin Berasategui has amassed six Michelin stars with his restaurants and now this visionary culinary master takes his artistry to the newly opened Tempo by Martin Berasategui.

From very humble beginnings in his family’s restaurant in San Sebastian, Berasategui has elevated Basque cuisine taking it to heights unknown and gained international recognition along the way.  With a restaurant empire that now includes properties in Barcelona, Bilbao, Shanghai, Punta Cana, Playa del Carmen and now Cancun.

Berasategui was born in 1960 in San Sebastián, where his family ran the restaurant el Bodegón Alejandro. He helped out at the restaurant as a child and at 17 left to enroll at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Pâtisserie in Yssingeaux, France. There he apprenticed as a pastry chef and then remained in France learning all the intricacies of a kitchen.

At 20 he returned home to take over el Bodegón Alejandro; earning his first Michelin star five years later. It was in 1993 when he opens his flagship Restaurante Martín Berasategui, in Lasarte. The restaurant was once voted ‘Best in the World’ and has continuously held a three-star rating from Michelin since 2001.

His restaurant group MB manages el Bodegón Alejandro, the Guggenheim Bilbao restaurant, Kursaal, and Restaurant Martin in Shanghai, to name just a few. Additionally, he is the culinary advisor to the two-star Michelin-rated Lasarte at the Hotel Condes de Barcelona, the Michelin-starred M.B of ABAMA Resort, and EME Catedral Hotel in Sevilla.

We were privileged to speak with Berasategui during the opening of his latest venture with Melia Hotels International. Together they now have Passion by Martín Berasategui at Hotel Paradisus Playa Del Carmen, Restaurante Fuego Gastro Bar at Hotel Paradisus Punta Cana, Passion By Mb At Hotel Paradisus Palma Real and the new one Tempo by Matin Berasategui at Paradisus Cancun.

HOMBRE: How did your interest in food and cooking develop?
Martin Berasategui: I wanted to be a chef since I was a child.
My first restaurant was our family’s El Bodegon Alejandro where I was born. That home was 50 meters from the most important market in San Sebastián and in one table you had farmers, in the other fishermen, in another people from the aristocracy. It was the most crowded place in San Sebastián.

I am the second son of four brothers and since childhood the memories I have about my origins are of that kitchen where my parents and my aunt would work over the charcoal stove. You had to throw bushels of charcoal and the temperature would rise to 350 degrees and all you would hear are the sounds of poultry or fish being charbroiled…that’s where I submitted myself to the work of the people that came before me; my parents, my aunt. I never forget that one day I was a rookie and that I’m here because I was on the shoulders of those very impressive people. The challenge I’ve given myself since a very young age was to improve on the magnificent legacy I received and continue receive.

H: You have restaurants at several Melia resorts, how did that relationship develop?
MB: This all began 12 years ago in meeting the families Escarrer and Bernardi. They were admirers of my food and later became my friends and after that they bring me projects to which I can’t say no. I enjoy myself and I’ve achieved much more than I ever imagined and one of those things is days like today. You are here at Paradisus Cancun with the restaurant Tempo Martin Berasategui. This is more than a dream made real.

H: How did you begin experimenting with flavors and textures? How does this curiosity develop?
MB: I am crazy! I have a creative bank of tasting in Lasarte and then later in Shangai, in Barcelona, and now I have it in Playa del Carmen. In the end the success of Martin Berasategui is the success of a team. I am a chef that seduces through the culture; from entrée to entrée, from dessert to dessert and my team services with extreme courtesy and friendliness to all the guests that come to my restaurants.

H: To what do you attribute your success?
MB: All that I am I owe to the public – without them we are nothing. And to some words that are very important to a chef: respect, humility and hard work. I’ve never tried to economize hours in my work, I’ve burned my eyelashes cooking and that’s my life. My life of cooking is based on creativity and it’s the success of work as a team. That is Martin Berasategui, nothing more.

H: How did you feel when you won your very first Michelin star?
MB: I felt it was something unique because it was the first time that Michelin gave a star to a ‘bodegon’ where you have to climb down 27 stairs to enter. When I got the Michelin star I thought it was an April’s fool joke. And when I found out it was real I walked on air twice around San Sebastián, I never touched the ground.
It was something that didn’t fit into my plans. And that is what changes me. It makes me dream that I have to say something as a chef which I’ve demonstrated years later. The ‘bodegon’ was limiting. It was very important for me, it was my university but I wanted more. I was searching for more and the merit was creating the project that everybody knows, the Martin Berasategui restaurant of Lasarte. That is the source from which everything else emanates and where I have 3 Michelin stars, it’s where dressed as a  cook I have touched the sky.

H: Was it a dream to have a Michelin star?
MB: I am one of those cooks who dreams small and works hard. And every hard worker in the kitchen has awards for waiting and if you work and let your life have the gastronomic art you have many rewards, you get many more awards than you have ever imagined existed. And that’s the luck I’ve had. There is a part of luck and there is the life of an insane man for whom happiness is a kitchen. And to make people happy. At the end, from the kitchen, I am part of the party. I am tremendously generous and search for the smile of everyone who comes to eat at my ‘home.’

H: How are each of your Paradisus restaurants different?
MB: Each proposal is an homage to the place where I feel like I’m home. All my offerings are different. And I try for each menu to be a journey to the paradise of authenticity of Martin. It’s something simple and natural that emanates from me, and when I say me I speak of us. I don’t speak of I, I speak of ‘us.’ In the kitchen there is no ‘I’ only ‘us.’ Singlehandedly we don’t achieve anything.

H: How would you describe Tempo?
MB: Tempo is an homage to Mexico and an homage to Cancun and it’s an enthusiastic cuisine, with equilibrium, with the feet firmly planted on the ground looking towards the future.