Latest / New Worlder / Episode #86: Juan Luis Martínez

Transcript

Episode #86: Juan Luis Martínez · New Worlder

0:00
SPEAKER_01: This is the New Worlder Podcast, and I am one of your hosts, Nicholas Gill.
0:07
SPEAKER_01: Co-host Juliana Duque will be joining shortly.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: Today, we are speaking with Juan Luis Martinez of the restaurant Merito in Lima, Peru.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Juan Luis was born in Venezuela,
0:19
SPEAKER_01: but has been living abroad and working in restaurants in Spain and Peru for many years.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: He opened Merito in 2018 after working at Central for a few years.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: It's this narrow two-level space in the Barranco neighborhood with lots of
0:33
SPEAKER_01: minimalist wood and adobe walls.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: You see the kitchen right upon entering,
0:37
SPEAKER_01: and there are a few seats there,
0:39
SPEAKER_01: but the majority of the seats are upstairs.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: The food is colorful, creative, and really, really delicious.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: Is it Venezuelan?
0:48
SPEAKER_01: Is it Peruvian?
0:49
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of both, but also neither at the same time.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: It's a restaurant that cannot easily be boxed in.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the beauty of it.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: More recently,
0:59
SPEAKER_01: he opened Demo,
1:01
SPEAKER_01: a cafe and bakery,
1:03
SPEAKER_01: which moved into a larger locations,
1:06
SPEAKER_01: just a few blocks from Merito.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: And it also has an attached pizzeria called Indio.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: And late last year,
1:12
SPEAKER_01: he opened another restaurant called Clone,
1:14
SPEAKER_01: which is kind of like Merito,
1:16
SPEAKER_01: but even more relaxed.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: So I was recently a voter in Food & Wine's Global Tastemaker Awards,
1:23
SPEAKER_01: and when the results were in,
1:26
SPEAKER_01: I was a bit surprised.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: Out of all the restaurants in the world,
1:30
SPEAKER_01: Merito in Lima was the one more of these voters ate better at in the last year than
1:35
SPEAKER_01: any other.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: That means for these awards, Merito was named the best restaurant in the world.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: Again, I was surprised.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: Not because they didn't deserve it, but because the restaurant is so unpretentious.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: I think some people had the impression I had something to do with Merito getting nominated.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: that ranking because I wrote the accompanying story about it, Four Fruit and Wine.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: But other than being a voter, I really didn't have anything to do with it.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't actually have that kind of pool.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for thinking I do, though, I guess.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: So Juan Luis and his wife, Michelle, who is a designer and whose work
2:11
SPEAKER_01: has left its own stamp on the restaurants as well,
2:13
SPEAKER_01: have managed to get a lot of attention,
2:16
SPEAKER_01: both locally and internationally,
2:18
SPEAKER_01: for these restaurants.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: You know, 50 best, best chef awards, whatever the list is, they're probably on it.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: Yet they have done it by almost doing the total opposite of what most other
2:31
SPEAKER_01: restaurants that have received similar amounts of attention have done.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: They aren't loud or flashy.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: The investments in the restaurants have never been lavish or they've never been in
2:41
SPEAKER_01: high profile locations.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: They aren't on social media nonstop or flying around to conferences every week.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: They have just focused on creating good,
2:50
SPEAKER_01: creative food in comfortable spaces at pretty reasonable prices with great service.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: And everyone loves them.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: I send people there all the time and I can't say I've ever heard someone disliking
3:01
SPEAKER_01: their experience at Merritto.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: or clone or demo.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: They just happen to have created really great restaurants.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: It's really that straightforward.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: So what is Merito?
3:13
SPEAKER_01: Is it a prototype of Venezuelan food fusing with Peruvian food?
3:17
SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of overlap of ingredients in the two countries,
3:21
SPEAKER_01: at least overlapping kinds of ingredients,
3:23
SPEAKER_01: if not the exact ingredients,
3:25
SPEAKER_01: especially in the Amazon and parts of the Andes.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: Plus, Lima has this history of absorbing whatever culture comes into town.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: There are more than a million Venezuelans that have moved to the city over the past decade.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: a phenomenon that's happening throughout the region because of the instability in Venezuela.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: There's no doubt that Venezuelan diaspora is having a major impact on food all over the region.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: And that's a story I've been watching closely for years.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm not entirely sure where Merito fits into all of that.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: I think it's just one kitchen's evolving understanding of flavor, memory, place, and art.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: It's not forced or trying to define itself.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: It just is.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: And it's wonderful.
4:10
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4:12
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4:17
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4:18
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4:21
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4:22
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4:23
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4:24
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4:25
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4:28
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4:32
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4:37
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4:43
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4:44
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4:48
SPEAKER_01: Enjoy the show.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: Hey Juan Luis, how are you?
5:34
SPEAKER_03: I'm okay Nick, how are you?
5:39
SPEAKER_03: I'm good, I'm good too.
5:42
SPEAKER_03: Hi Juliana, how are you?
5:44
SPEAKER_03: Good, thank you.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: Where are you at right now?
5:49
SPEAKER_01: Are you in like some back room of the restaurant?
5:52
SPEAKER_03: Right now,
5:53
SPEAKER_03: I'm in the office,
5:55
SPEAKER_03: the administration,
5:57
SPEAKER_03: and then we have the studio for Astro,
6:02
SPEAKER_03: for Michelle,
6:04
SPEAKER_03: my wife.
6:05
SPEAKER_03: She has her studio here,
6:07
SPEAKER_03: the administration,
6:08
SPEAKER_03: and then we have a little deposit for the plates and all the stuff.
6:16
SPEAKER_03: You see all that right there?
6:22
SPEAKER_03: This is the back office.
6:28
SPEAKER_03: Which is a block away from Merito.
6:32
SPEAKER_03: We have everything in Barranco, you know, because we have little spaces, we don't have a big space.
6:39
SPEAKER_03: So this is,
6:40
SPEAKER_03: you know,
6:41
SPEAKER_03: one block away from Merito is this place and we have Merito with the two spaces and
6:48
SPEAKER_03: you have Clone just around the corner.
6:50
SPEAKER_03: Then we have the other area for the production just, you know, two blocks away.
6:57
SPEAKER_03: And that's how we managed to organize ourselves here in the district.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: This is like the command center.
7:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, everything, you know, starts here.
7:10
SPEAKER_03: We have meetings here for now.
7:16
SPEAKER_03: Then,
7:17
SPEAKER_03: you know,
7:18
SPEAKER_03: everything,
7:18
SPEAKER_03: the financial part of the,
7:22
SPEAKER_03: now the three,
7:22
SPEAKER_03: you know,
7:23
SPEAKER_03: the three companies,
7:24
SPEAKER_03: the three concepts that we have,
7:27
SPEAKER_03: Clone,
7:28
SPEAKER_03: Merito,
7:29
SPEAKER_03: and Demo,
7:31
SPEAKER_03: everything it's managed from this place.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: All right, let's get right kind of into it.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: So a lot's happened with Merito lately.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: I think you've got like a ton of recognition in the last,
7:46
SPEAKER_01: like year,
7:47
SPEAKER_01: like,
7:47
SPEAKER_01: as you saw,
7:48
SPEAKER_01: I wrote this kind of accompanying story for a food and wine magazine,
7:54
SPEAKER_01: but it actually seems like I probably had more to do with it than,
8:00
SPEAKER_01: than I actually did.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of people assume that's like, that was my doing for some reason.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: And like some people wrote me about that.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: But,
8:08
SPEAKER_01: you know,
8:08
SPEAKER_01: I,
8:08
SPEAKER_01: I just happened to be one of a large group of voters for this one particular food
8:15
SPEAKER_01: and wine list.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: So it was kind of this consensus of a lot of different journalists that Merito was
8:21
SPEAKER_01: basically the best place they ate in the,
8:23
SPEAKER_01: in the past year.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: Do you, well, do you get surprised that the restaurant keeps getting so much critical praise?
8:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, of course, every day.
8:37
SPEAKER_03: We didn't plan for any of this really.
8:42
SPEAKER_03: It feels great that people are happy when they come and they live with a good
8:48
SPEAKER_03: experience and they like to share it and say,
8:53
SPEAKER_03: hey,
8:54
SPEAKER_03: this is a place that you have to visit.
8:58
SPEAKER_03: But Merito, six years, almost six years ago when it started, it
9:05
SPEAKER_03: You know,
9:05
SPEAKER_03: the idea was just to,
9:06
SPEAKER_03: you know,
9:07
SPEAKER_03: cook,
9:08
SPEAKER_03: you know,
9:09
SPEAKER_03: and have a nice restaurant that will be,
9:11
SPEAKER_03: you know,
9:13
SPEAKER_03: rentable,
9:15
SPEAKER_03: profitable,
9:16
SPEAKER_03: and...
9:19
SPEAKER_03: And to do what you like.
9:23
SPEAKER_03: We just wanted to cook what we felt was right.
9:27
SPEAKER_03: And little by little, you start evolving, you mature.
9:34
SPEAKER_03: I was kind of thinking about that yesterday.
9:37
SPEAKER_03: I always say that Merito has evolved and has matured and has grown.
9:43
SPEAKER_03: But then I always forget about myself.
9:50
SPEAKER_03: What's my role in this little world of Merito?
9:54
SPEAKER_03: Because I try to always think about him or it.
9:58
SPEAKER_03: And because he helps me be a little bit less ego thinking about me, me, me, me.
10:09
SPEAKER_03: I think about Merito.
10:12
SPEAKER_03: But then I say,
10:13
SPEAKER_03: hey,
10:13
SPEAKER_03: you know,
10:14
SPEAKER_03: I also have grown,
10:16
SPEAKER_03: you know,
10:17
SPEAKER_03: I also have evolved and I also have learned many things throughout this year about
10:22
SPEAKER_03: myself and about the business and about,
10:26
SPEAKER_03: you know,
10:26
SPEAKER_03: this country,
10:29
SPEAKER_03: about this district where we live and,
10:32
SPEAKER_03: you know,
10:32
SPEAKER_03: many things.
10:33
SPEAKER_03: And that's projected there, you know, that's exposed in that space.
10:40
SPEAKER_03: So it's pretty cool.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: No, I, I think it is cool.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: And like, I, sometimes I am a little surprised by how much attention you get in it.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: Not because you don't deserve it.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: You,
10:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
10:49
SPEAKER_01: you absolutely do,
10:50
SPEAKER_01: but there are so many restaurants now,
10:53
SPEAKER_01: like playing this game to get on these lists yet.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: You know,
10:59
SPEAKER_01: like you're not one that's flying in chefs and voters to Lima to eat at the
11:03
SPEAKER_01: restaurant or anything like that.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: You have no marketing team, I assume.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: Do you?
11:09
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: What about like in your social media?
11:12
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty infrequent.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes I wonder if like one of the restaurants closed.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: That's how like infrequent it is.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: You know,
11:25
SPEAKER_01: and there's not really like this grand statement about what the restaurant means or
11:30
SPEAKER_01: what it's trying to accomplish.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
11:33
SPEAKER_01: like journalists like me try to,
11:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:36
SPEAKER_01: make my grand statement for the restaurant,
11:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:39
SPEAKER_01: for my own purposes.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: But I don't see one coming out from you.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, you're not trying to like.
11:46
SPEAKER_01: make peace between Peru and Venezuela,
11:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:49
SPEAKER_01: it's not,
11:50
SPEAKER_01: and it's not this,
11:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:53
SPEAKER_01: big flashy place.
11:54
SPEAKER_03: So for some reason we always,
11:56
SPEAKER_03: we,
11:56
SPEAKER_03: we always fall there,
11:57
SPEAKER_03: you know,
11:58
SPEAKER_03: but,
11:58
SPEAKER_03: um,
11:59
SPEAKER_03: because I think,
12:00
SPEAKER_03: you know,
12:01
SPEAKER_03: still,
12:02
SPEAKER_03: that's why you say we,
12:03
SPEAKER_03: we don't know what's happening.
12:04
SPEAKER_03: We don't know what it is.
12:05
SPEAKER_03: And,
12:06
SPEAKER_03: and,
12:06
SPEAKER_03: and,
12:06
SPEAKER_03: and,
12:07
SPEAKER_03: and for some reason it is there and,
12:09
SPEAKER_03: and,
12:09
SPEAKER_03: and you,
12:09
SPEAKER_03: it's palpable,
12:10
SPEAKER_03: palpable,
12:11
SPEAKER_03: you know,
12:11
SPEAKER_03: you can,
12:12
SPEAKER_03: Almost,
12:13
SPEAKER_03: you know,
12:13
SPEAKER_03: you can feel it,
12:14
SPEAKER_03: but you don't know how really to explain it,
12:17
SPEAKER_03: which is,
12:18
SPEAKER_03: I think that's the cool thing about it,
12:21
SPEAKER_03: you know,
12:22
SPEAKER_03: what makes it a bit special,
12:24
SPEAKER_03: you know,
12:26
SPEAKER_03: that it's not really defined.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: No, I mean, I think that's the kind of, that's where I'm getting at.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: It's like, that's the honest thing about it.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: It's like, it's not trying to be something, you know, it's just trying to be what it is.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: be what kind of comes naturally and serve good food and have a good service.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: And, and again, and again, like everyone seems to love it.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: Everyone I've ever sent there has, you know, has, has loved it.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: And it's,
12:58
SPEAKER_01: it's just this whole notion of creating this big thing seems really secondary when,
13:05
SPEAKER_01: when your focus is just making a good restaurant.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: And I think things get turned around so much that too many chefs, too many restaurants forget that.
13:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I'm really careful not to lose that sense.
13:26
SPEAKER_03: Because that's what I felt from the first day.
13:30
SPEAKER_03: And then all these things happen, and it's easy to get deviated.
13:36
SPEAKER_03: So we put a lot of effort in not forgetting the motive of what...
13:45
SPEAKER_03: why it all started.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: How does that look, Juan Luis?
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Like putting, being careful about it and putting a lot of effort in not losing the track.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: How does that look on a daily basis or,
14:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
14:01
SPEAKER_00: in your ideas when you say,
14:03
SPEAKER_00: I have to be careful and remind these with that?
14:06
SPEAKER_00: Can you give us examples of that?
14:08
SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, it's one of the most important
14:14
SPEAKER_03: active now that we have in terms of decision making and what path to take.
14:24
SPEAKER_03: Because we all will have to make decisions in an evolving time.
14:30
SPEAKER_03: It's something, it's tend to evolve.
14:34
SPEAKER_03: So what's gonna take to guide it through that evolution path?
14:42
SPEAKER_03: So one of them is, let's say, tasting menu.
14:48
SPEAKER_03: We don't have a tasting menu yet in Merito.
14:51
SPEAKER_03: We never had it.
14:52
SPEAKER_03: And so it's a la carte.
14:54
SPEAKER_03: It's always, oh, to share.
14:56
SPEAKER_03: And that's always been the vibe in Merito,
14:58
SPEAKER_03: even though,
14:59
SPEAKER_03: oh,
15:00
SPEAKER_03: yes,
15:01
SPEAKER_03: this is fine dining,
15:02
SPEAKER_03: or this is really meticulous food and tasty.
15:05
SPEAKER_03: And it's really, there's a lot of technique and all this, which
15:11
SPEAKER_03: often that falls into this package of tasting menu or experience.
15:22
SPEAKER_03: Nowadays, we always use this term to describe your moment in a restaurant.
15:29
SPEAKER_03: We call that experience.
15:37
SPEAKER_03: and then you know now we were like okay so what do we do uh so we gotta be i gotta
15:43
SPEAKER_03: be really careful if if we're gonna take that that path how we're gonna take it not
15:48
SPEAKER_03: to lose in order not to lose what we have or or maybe we we're gonna have to um uh
15:56
SPEAKER_03: assume that that's gonna be a part of the of the of the of the effect that we're
16:04
SPEAKER_03: gonna have to deal with
16:07
SPEAKER_03: in order to evolve and to grow and to find a new path and discover new things.
16:14
SPEAKER_03: Because at the end,
16:16
SPEAKER_03: I think what really inspires me and I think everyone in the restaurant is to
16:23
SPEAKER_03: discover new things,
16:25
SPEAKER_03: to be...
16:27
SPEAKER_03: to be surprised from what we do and in that way we have to sometimes go into the
16:37
SPEAKER_03: unknown because it's the only way to get surprised.
16:42
SPEAKER_03: You find new things, and that's what moves us.
16:46
SPEAKER_03: So in the way of all this decision-making of not losing that essence and that identity,
16:55
SPEAKER_03: that feeling,
16:57
SPEAKER_03: then it gets all these recognitions because people love it,
17:02
SPEAKER_03: and then we get rankings and all this that,
17:06
SPEAKER_03: really kind of, if you're not really careful, you can get too attached to that.
17:13
SPEAKER_03: And then you lose the other part.
17:17
SPEAKER_03: So it's a game of managing that world and managing the real world of being in that
17:28
SPEAKER_03: restaurant each day,
17:30
SPEAKER_03: day by day.
17:33
SPEAKER_03: So that's,
17:35
SPEAKER_03: you know,
17:35
SPEAKER_03: it's a little,
17:36
SPEAKER_03: it's part of what makes the life of a restaurant like ours,
17:44
SPEAKER_03: you know,
17:45
SPEAKER_03: that has this type of exposure and has,
17:52
SPEAKER_03: you know,
17:53
SPEAKER_03: kind of has a voice and a message to share.
17:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: So the restaurant,
18:01
SPEAKER_01: like most things I've read about it and even some things I've written about it,
18:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:06
SPEAKER_01: call it Peruvian-Venezuelan fusion.
18:11
SPEAKER_01: Is that fair or accurate?
18:16
SPEAKER_03: Well,
18:17
SPEAKER_03: you see,
18:18
SPEAKER_03: I always get,
18:19
SPEAKER_03: you know,
18:20
SPEAKER_03: that's the easiest way to do it,
18:22
SPEAKER_03: you know,
18:22
SPEAKER_03: because,
18:23
SPEAKER_03: you know,
18:23
SPEAKER_03: my roots are,
18:24
SPEAKER_03: you know,
18:24
SPEAKER_03: I'm from Venezuela and we're in Peru and...
18:28
SPEAKER_03: And I think for most people, it's easier that way.
18:36
SPEAKER_03: But at the end,
18:38
SPEAKER_03: I think it's because,
18:40
SPEAKER_03: I think,
18:42
SPEAKER_03: let's compare it to music,
18:45
SPEAKER_03: to the music,
18:47
SPEAKER_03: all the genders that exist to describe nowadays all the type of music there is.
18:54
SPEAKER_03: And you can find millions.
18:58
SPEAKER_03: And then we go to gastronomy.
19:00
SPEAKER_03: And the quantity of different now concepts and worlds created in all these
19:10
SPEAKER_03: restaurants that now exist,
19:12
SPEAKER_03: they're vast.
19:14
SPEAKER_03: And we don't have enough.
19:18
SPEAKER_03: names to to describe you know all these types of restaurants that that exist today
19:25
SPEAKER_03: so i don't know maybe maybe we have to try to reach a little bit of of that world
19:32
SPEAKER_03: of music to to grab in some some other words to these words to describe the type of
19:39
SPEAKER_03: cuisines that now exist and um
19:45
SPEAKER_03: and not fall only in nationalities, in words of cultural things.
19:55
SPEAKER_03: Maybe now,
19:58
SPEAKER_03: for example,
19:59
SPEAKER_03: we talk about,
19:59
SPEAKER_03: now they ask me,
20:01
SPEAKER_03: oh,
20:01
SPEAKER_03: what's the difference between clone and meritor?
20:05
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, oh wow, so now how do I?
20:10
SPEAKER_03: No, but it helped me now because now it's easier, I think.
20:13
SPEAKER_03: Because before it was only Merito,
20:15
SPEAKER_03: and Merito's,
20:16
SPEAKER_03: okay,
20:16
SPEAKER_03: it's Venezuelan,
20:17
SPEAKER_03: it's Peruvian,
20:18
SPEAKER_03: but it's neither of them.
20:19
SPEAKER_03: It's its own thing.
20:23
SPEAKER_03: And it talks about a product.
20:26
SPEAKER_03: It really focuses on this product that has really strong roots in Latin America,
20:36
SPEAKER_03: in the Amazon,
20:37
SPEAKER_03: in the Andes,
20:38
SPEAKER_03: in the coast and in the sea that we share and you know it all comes from there and
20:43
SPEAKER_03: that's that's merito and now clone says okay i'm now i'm more traditional i'm more
20:50
SPEAKER_03: of of recipes i'm more of reinterpreting culture there you you find
20:58
SPEAKER_03: mixed of recipes,
21:00
SPEAKER_03: mixed of flavors,
21:01
SPEAKER_03: mixed of traditions,
21:08
SPEAKER_03: mixed of cultures,
21:10
SPEAKER_03: because you find a ceviche which wants to be a vuelve la vida from Venezuela.
21:17
SPEAKER_03: You find an arepa from the Andes of Venezuela, which is made not with corn flour, but with...
21:29
SPEAKER_03: just wheat flour.
21:34
SPEAKER_03: And then you mix, you fill this arepa with pejerrey.
21:42
SPEAKER_03: You think of pejerrey, this little fish from Peru.
21:48
SPEAKER_03: And you think Peru and Venezuela, it's a mix.
21:52
SPEAKER_03: So there you see more of this mixture of cultures,
21:57
SPEAKER_03: of other nationalities or other roots from different histories that made that
22:08
SPEAKER_03: fusion in that country also.
22:11
SPEAKER_03: So now I can make a difference.
22:15
SPEAKER_03: I can explain it a little better, I think, of what merito is.
22:20
SPEAKER_03: And then you find demo,
22:22
SPEAKER_03: and in demo you find cachapa,
22:24
SPEAKER_03: you find tequeños,
22:26
SPEAKER_03: and then you find this arepa,
22:27
SPEAKER_03: which has an egg on top and the hollandaise.
22:31
SPEAKER_03: It's kind of like all this mixture of flavors and tradition in a way,
22:39
SPEAKER_03: in the way that we like to expose it.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: I find it really interesting,
22:45
SPEAKER_01: all of these kind of different concepts,
22:47
SPEAKER_01: because right now,
22:51
SPEAKER_01: over the last,
22:51
SPEAKER_01: what,
22:52
SPEAKER_01: 10 years,
22:54
SPEAKER_01: what is it,
22:54
SPEAKER_01: like 8 million Venezuelans,
22:56
SPEAKER_01: something like that?
22:57
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's in the millions, maybe 10 million at this point, have left Venezuela.
23:03
SPEAKER_01: And they're bringing these food ideas with them when they go,
23:08
SPEAKER_01: and they're setting up new lives and places,
23:10
SPEAKER_01: and
23:12
SPEAKER_01: And all of your concepts are not just trying to make Venezuela in Lima.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: It's like they're all going in different directions,
23:23
SPEAKER_01: but they're all very kind of personal directions and just personal ways of doing things.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: There's not really a way to really replicate any of these concepts.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: You're not trying to make a chain of demos or meritos or clones.
23:42
SPEAKER_03: Well, Merito, no.
23:45
SPEAKER_03: Clone, maybe it can be cloned.
23:49
SPEAKER_03: Demo, it will be easier, I think.
23:54
SPEAKER_03: But I think the key of it is that, you know, it has to...
24:00
SPEAKER_03: He has to be able to adapt to whichever place it will be destined to.
24:09
SPEAKER_03: I think that's the key of everything,
24:13
SPEAKER_03: to really understand where you are and grab as much as you can from that place.
24:25
SPEAKER_03: and incorporate it to what you're doing because that has,
24:30
SPEAKER_03: for me,
24:30
SPEAKER_03: has much more impact and it makes more sense and it feels fresh,
24:40
SPEAKER_03: you know,
24:40
SPEAKER_03: it feels coherent.
24:43
SPEAKER_03: and you also emphasize the attributes that you always are able to find in the place
24:57
SPEAKER_03: where you are and that helps you create new things.
25:02
SPEAKER_03: That's where you can grab that and you can push yourself to
25:09
SPEAKER_03: to new, to find new things.
25:12
SPEAKER_03: And those new things just make you elaborate new stuff.
25:16
SPEAKER_03: You don't have to, so then we don't have to keep doing the same thing.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: Do you find,
25:22
SPEAKER_00: um,
25:22
SPEAKER_00: important in that awareness of understanding where you are to think about the
25:28
SPEAKER_00: broader context,
25:29
SPEAKER_00: let's say in this case,
25:31
SPEAKER_00: the continent or,
25:33
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:33
SPEAKER_00: the macro region.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: do you find that that is part of being aware of,
25:38
SPEAKER_00: okay,
25:39
SPEAKER_00: how the place and the ecosystem and the people and the cultures around determine
25:45
SPEAKER_00: what I'm doing in that sense too,
25:47
SPEAKER_00: not only local,
25:48
SPEAKER_00: let's say,
25:48
SPEAKER_00: or immediately local?
25:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, it's understanding where you are, you know, as I was telling, and to...
26:05
SPEAKER_03: It's like when I went to Cartagena,
26:08
SPEAKER_03: and I found this whole new world of things that felt really close to what I'm used to,
26:20
SPEAKER_03: but it's totally different.
26:23
SPEAKER_03: And to just...
26:29
SPEAKER_03: For me to be, let's say we go over there and we plant a demo or whatever.
26:34
SPEAKER_03: We have to grab that and make it our own also.
26:43
SPEAKER_03: And we don't have to think that, you know, that we have to create the same thing that we left behind.
26:53
SPEAKER_03: We always try, you know, it's cool to make that, you know, replicate what you lost in a way.
27:02
SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about this migration that we,
27:05
SPEAKER_03: and it's,
27:06
SPEAKER_03: you know,
27:06
SPEAKER_03: that nostalgia that also we don't want to lose.
27:12
SPEAKER_03: And,
27:13
SPEAKER_03: but then you can create that nostalgia with new things because,
27:17
SPEAKER_03: you know,
27:17
SPEAKER_03: when some people come,
27:18
SPEAKER_03: you know,
27:19
SPEAKER_03: from Venezuela and come to Merito and they try that arepa,
27:21
SPEAKER_03: which is totally different,
27:25
SPEAKER_03: they feel home,
27:27
SPEAKER_03: you know,
27:27
SPEAKER_03: in a way,
27:28
SPEAKER_03: you know,
27:28
SPEAKER_03: and it's a feeling.
27:31
SPEAKER_03: So I think it's really important to, you know,
27:37
SPEAKER_03: hold on to those feelings and try to use them in order to expand and to create new
27:49
SPEAKER_03: paths and new concepts and new ways of expression and connection also.
28:00
SPEAKER_03: Because this only creates more,
28:08
SPEAKER_03: it connects people.
28:11
SPEAKER_03: Now we find that astronomy and the food, it's really powerful.
28:15
SPEAKER_03: And if we can find a way to
28:23
SPEAKER_03: to mix them and to give, you know, a valor to, how do you say in English?
28:32
SPEAKER_03: A value, you know, to what's really
28:38
SPEAKER_03: around you and to not think that everything is,
28:44
SPEAKER_03: uh,
28:44
SPEAKER_03: you know,
28:45
SPEAKER_03: somewhere else,
28:45
SPEAKER_03: you know,
28:47
SPEAKER_03: it's,
28:47
SPEAKER_03: uh,
28:47
SPEAKER_03: it's really important.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: This is a very interesting relation that I'm not sure I have,
28:52
SPEAKER_00: I have heard before from chefs or not put in that way,
28:56
SPEAKER_00: like to create new ways of expressions as a way of,
29:03
SPEAKER_00: uh,
29:03
SPEAKER_00: creating new ways of connection.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: That is very powerful because I think,
29:09
SPEAKER_00: You know,
29:10
SPEAKER_00: self-expression,
29:11
SPEAKER_00: as you say,
29:12
SPEAKER_00: it's easy to fall into the ego,
29:15
SPEAKER_00: self-centered,
29:16
SPEAKER_00: you know,
29:17
SPEAKER_00: discourse and narrative.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: And when you see it as innovation is a way of connecting people in new ways,
29:27
SPEAKER_00: that is a total different world that opens up.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I just want to highlight that because I think it's very, very powerful and I wish
29:38
SPEAKER_00: you know,
29:39
SPEAKER_00: art and gastronomy and all the things that are happening now are seen more and more
29:44
SPEAKER_00: in that way.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks for that.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Makes my day.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: When we were in, yeah,
30:00
SPEAKER_01: we were kind of talking about this a little bit where,
30:03
SPEAKER_01: you know,
30:03
SPEAKER_01: Merita isn't,
30:04
SPEAKER_01: isn't quite a restaurant,
30:05
SPEAKER_01: but it's,
30:06
SPEAKER_01: it's almost like a lifestyle,
30:08
SPEAKER_01: you know,
30:08
SPEAKER_01: it's,
30:09
SPEAKER_01: it's finding your own way of doing things in the way that makes sense for you.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: And I think the example we gave,
30:22
SPEAKER_01: and it's probably a better one,
30:23
SPEAKER_01: but you said like,
30:24
SPEAKER_01: I want to make coffee.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: I want to do it in a way that makes sense to me.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: So how do you make coffee at demo?
30:34
SPEAKER_01: Is it, was, is there any like unique way of preparing coffee?
30:39
SPEAKER_03: In demo, I mean, we rely really in, uh, in our provider, you know, uh, this guy's from.
30:46
SPEAKER_03: from here, from Peru, and they have their own brand of coffee, which is Millimetrica.
30:53
SPEAKER_03: But then the source, they also have the sourcing of it, which is Origin Coffee Lab.
30:59
SPEAKER_03: So we try to be really involved with
31:09
SPEAKER_03: not only order the coffee and here it is and it tastes great and that's it.
31:17
SPEAKER_03: We really try to understand where it comes from,
31:21
SPEAKER_03: try to put ourselves in that place or maybe we're gonna visit the source someday
31:27
SPEAKER_03: because we have to take advantage of that connection that we have with the source,
31:34
SPEAKER_03: which is so important.
31:36
SPEAKER_03: because at the end you can um it's something about being close to that that you
31:44
SPEAKER_03: know you you get feed from that and you know something happens there i don't know
31:49
SPEAKER_03: call it energetically or or you know something that really you know
31:56
SPEAKER_03: So apart from making coffee,
32:03
SPEAKER_03: we have to tell a story of who first touches that bean and what's their story and
32:18
SPEAKER_03: how can we share it with the spaces that we built.
32:25
SPEAKER_03: Uh,
32:26
SPEAKER_03: and then in terms of flavor,
32:27
SPEAKER_03: you know,
32:28
SPEAKER_03: being more pointing,
32:30
SPEAKER_03: uh,
32:31
SPEAKER_03: more focused on that and on the final product.
32:34
SPEAKER_03: Um, it's, it's like me being there every day and I'm, I'm a coffee consumer.
32:39
SPEAKER_03: So,
32:40
SPEAKER_03: so I'm like,
32:41
SPEAKER_03: uh,
32:41
SPEAKER_03: you know,
32:42
SPEAKER_03: I feel that this is a,
32:44
SPEAKER_03: you know,
32:44
SPEAKER_03: it's a little,
32:45
SPEAKER_03: you know,
32:46
SPEAKER_03: less,
32:47
SPEAKER_03: um,
32:48
SPEAKER_03: acid or.
32:49
SPEAKER_03: a little bit more bitter.
32:52
SPEAKER_03: And then, you know, we start, you know, talk with, with the,
32:56
SPEAKER_03: with the guys, you know, the roasters.
33:00
SPEAKER_03: Then we go to check the roastery and they explain to me,
33:04
SPEAKER_03: you know,
33:05
SPEAKER_03: all this like really way of roasting the coffee,
33:09
SPEAKER_03: which is another different world.
33:11
SPEAKER_03: And then I kind of understand a little bit of that.
33:15
SPEAKER_03: And then I process, you know, ideas and, you know, we start sharing.
33:21
SPEAKER_03: It's about sharing everything.
33:25
SPEAKER_03: I think that's the key of it and trying to,
33:29
SPEAKER_03: you know,
33:30
SPEAKER_03: in that moment you grab something and then that helps you create something in the
33:35
SPEAKER_03: restaurant or maybe in a pastry or in a cookie or,
33:40
SPEAKER_03: you know,
33:41
SPEAKER_03: everything gets feed from that.
33:46
SPEAKER_03: But then we try to implement also
33:53
SPEAKER_03: What we do in Merito, you know, kind of like what happens in Merito fits everything else, no?
33:59
SPEAKER_03: Merito is kind of like this tasting area,
34:05
SPEAKER_03: you know,
34:05
SPEAKER_03: where everything starts,
34:08
SPEAKER_03: flavors,
34:09
SPEAKER_03: products,
34:09
SPEAKER_03: and then,
34:10
SPEAKER_03: oh,
34:10
SPEAKER_03: listen,
34:11
SPEAKER_03: now we can kind of grab this and use it in clone for this,
34:15
SPEAKER_03: and then,
34:16
SPEAKER_03: oh,
34:16
SPEAKER_03: this will work out in the coffee.
34:19
SPEAKER_03: this will work out in the chocolate for the croissant or this can work and you know
34:25
SPEAKER_03: it starts to emanate all this information in new ways of doing more things more
34:34
SPEAKER_03: interesting stuff and always thinking about the product you know the local product
34:40
SPEAKER_03: that you know I think it has so much power and you know in those
34:46
SPEAKER_03: two, three days that we were in Taraboto, which is 45 minutes fly away from here.
34:55
SPEAKER_03: I just saw 30 different new ingredients that I never knew before.
35:02
SPEAKER_03: So it's crazy.
35:05
SPEAKER_03: The vast quantity of products that we don't know yet.
35:13
SPEAKER_03: It's incredible.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: Have you done anything with any of the things you saw?
35:18
SPEAKER_01: Like the peanuts, like the Amazonian peanuts, these kind of whitish peanuts.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: They kind of make in a sauce.
35:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we made a...
35:28
SPEAKER_03: We made a tahini, tahini with the peanuts that we bought that day.
35:36
SPEAKER_03: And now you find it in something as simple as hummus that we have in demo.
35:44
SPEAKER_03: So instead of using regular tahini made from sesame, we made it ourselves with the peanuts from Tarapoto.
35:55
SPEAKER_03: And,
35:55
SPEAKER_03: you know,
35:56
SPEAKER_03: I never knew that,
35:56
SPEAKER_03: you know,
35:57
SPEAKER_03: we were going to make,
35:59
SPEAKER_03: you know,
36:00
SPEAKER_03: a tahini with fresh peanuts from the Amazon.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: And tahini is, it's used a lot in Venezuela, right?
36:07
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, the coast, like there's a lot of influence from the Middle East.
36:12
SPEAKER_03: Well, I just, really, I just learned that.
36:15
SPEAKER_03: I never knew it until I met now Jaime when I went to Colombia, then he really exposed it to me.
36:24
SPEAKER_03: He taught me a lot about, you know, what went on in that area, you know, in that territory.
36:34
SPEAKER_03: The influence from, you know, from the Middle East, from Arabic, Middle East, yeah.
36:41
SPEAKER_03: And it's really interesting because I grew up going to Lebanese restaurants in
36:52
SPEAKER_03: Caracas and we had a big community from the Lebanon.
37:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a flavor that I grew up with, so I really enjoy it.
37:04
SPEAKER_03: And to be able to get to those flavor profiles with a product so different,
37:15
SPEAKER_03: you know,
37:15
SPEAKER_03: it's a dry,
37:16
SPEAKER_03: you know,
37:18
SPEAKER_03: kind of like a nut,
37:19
SPEAKER_03: you know,
37:20
SPEAKER_03: but that is the peanut that is fresh and it's from the Amazon.
37:26
SPEAKER_03: It's so cool, you know, to be able to do that.
37:29
SPEAKER_03: And, um, and then you find it in this demo that, that has cachapas and has all this stuff.
37:35
SPEAKER_03: And then we have, uh, um, uh, chocolate from, from, from, from the Amazon also.
37:43
SPEAKER_03: And, and then you have find this, uh, this peanut and, you know, it's, um, it makes sense.
37:50
SPEAKER_03: No.
37:50
SPEAKER_01: Do you find yourself pulling more from any particular region of Peru, like at Meritol?
38:01
SPEAKER_01: Like, is it from the Andes, the coast, the Amazon?
38:03
SPEAKER_01: Flavor profile?
38:05
SPEAKER_03: I enjoy from the north, no?
38:08
SPEAKER_03: From the north.
38:11
SPEAKER_03: Like the north coast?
38:15
SPEAKER_03: You know,
38:16
SPEAKER_03: like Chiclayo,
38:17
SPEAKER_03: all these flavors from...
38:19
SPEAKER_03: I've never been to Chiclayo,
38:21
SPEAKER_03: but I go to...
38:22
SPEAKER_03: I've been to La Picanteria,
38:25
SPEAKER_03: to Fiesta,
38:26
SPEAKER_03: and those are Chiclayo flavors.
38:27
SPEAKER_03: And then I kind of like, you know,
38:31
SPEAKER_03: grab what I can.
38:33
SPEAKER_03: I understand that.
38:34
SPEAKER_03: But then we have Peruvian cooks with us that they have that information.
38:42
SPEAKER_03: They know how to get to those flavors.
38:45
SPEAKER_03: And then I'm like, okay, I have Jans, which is our cook from Clone, and he's from the Amazon.
38:54
SPEAKER_03: He's from this region in the Amazon.
38:57
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, okay, so what can Jans
39:01
SPEAKER_03: uh a gift gift to us you know what first of all let him show you know be himself
39:08
SPEAKER_03: and be able to express himself which is really important for everyone and then we
39:15
SPEAKER_03: find okay so you know we understand the misquina he understands this and and we
39:21
SPEAKER_03: grab that and
39:22
SPEAKER_03: We give it a twist and we always try to make something unique with that.
39:28
SPEAKER_03: But we try to grab flavors, techniques that they use, the products.
39:33
SPEAKER_03: And then we find to Arequipa.
39:38
SPEAKER_03: We try to make a rocoto relleno.
39:40
SPEAKER_03: We want to make a ramen with rocoto relleno.
39:45
SPEAKER_03: And we know that Juan,
39:48
SPEAKER_03: the other chef,
39:50
SPEAKER_03: knows how to make those wheat flour arepas that he grew up with his grandmother.
39:57
SPEAKER_03: And they're kind of sweet.
39:59
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, OK, that makes sense.
40:00
SPEAKER_03: Let's make the pejerrey, which is a sandwich con pejerrey.
40:06
SPEAKER_03: So it makes sense.
40:08
SPEAKER_03: And we try to grab from everywhere, really.
40:11
SPEAKER_03: Everywhere we can,
40:12
SPEAKER_03: and I've been to Arequipa twice,
40:15
SPEAKER_03: so I have some flavors there that I really love,
40:19
SPEAKER_03: and the use of the
40:22
SPEAKER_03: the prawns and,
40:23
SPEAKER_03: but then you try to,
40:26
SPEAKER_03: sometimes you try to reach those flavors with the products that you find here and
40:31
SPEAKER_03: you can't because the garlic tastes different and the tomato tastes different and then,
40:37
SPEAKER_03: okay,
40:38
SPEAKER_03: let's try to get those tomatoes from Marikipa and to see if we can get to those flavors.
40:47
SPEAKER_03: Then we tried to, we called Aldo, Aldito from Patrasca.
40:54
SPEAKER_03: And now he's helping us get some ingredients from Tarapoto.
41:02
SPEAKER_03: And then we, you know, before we opened Merito,
41:10
SPEAKER_03: I really enjoyed those flavors that I talked to you about,
41:13
SPEAKER_03: the ones from La Picantería and from Fiesta,
41:17
SPEAKER_03: the ají amarillo sauce and really punchy flavors.
41:26
SPEAKER_03: By luck, there were two girls who were former cooks from Fiesta.
41:33
SPEAKER_03: And I was able to ask them to teach us all this basis of the flavors that they use.
41:44
SPEAKER_03: So opening Merito, we kind of understood these flavors.
41:49
SPEAKER_03: We didn't have to fly to Chiclayo, but they taught us.
41:55
SPEAKER_01: Chiclayo came to you.
41:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
41:58
SPEAKER_03: So yeah,
41:59
SPEAKER_03: that's the way,
42:00
SPEAKER_03: you know,
42:01
SPEAKER_03: and I think we still have to,
42:03
SPEAKER_03: you know,
42:04
SPEAKER_03: get to know many more places because we only know,
42:08
SPEAKER_03: you know,
42:08
SPEAKER_03: a small amount.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: I have a question about that curation of products,
42:15
SPEAKER_00: local products,
42:16
SPEAKER_00: because as you are aware of not losing the track of the,
42:22
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:22
SPEAKER_00: genuine spirit of what
42:25
SPEAKER_00: you and your team do.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: I think there is a risk of exoticizing local products just for the sake of they are
42:33
SPEAKER_00: local and the value that we are giving to locality and communities making the
42:41
SPEAKER_00: effort to grow those products.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: So I think as we are more critical now about international things are not good just
42:51
SPEAKER_00: for the sake of being international and new.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: newness is not good just for the sake of being new i don't think local is good or
43:01
SPEAKER_00: right just for the sake of being local right how i mean i'm sure this is not a easy
43:11
SPEAKER_00: this is a process because one thing is that it has cultural value and then the
43:17
SPEAKER_00: other is that it has like
43:19
SPEAKER_00: tasting value or, you know, gastronomic value.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: And maybe these two things are the same.
43:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: But how do you go about that?
43:28
SPEAKER_00: And how are you, how do you train this filter of, is this really good?
43:33
SPEAKER_00: And do I really want to use it?
43:35
SPEAKER_00: Or is it just because these communities are nice and making a good effort and I get
43:41
SPEAKER_00: along and I connect and I sympathize?
43:47
SPEAKER_03: Well, it's all of those things that you mentioned.
43:50
SPEAKER_03: But also, it's also...
43:54
SPEAKER_03: It's a way of connecting to the place.
43:59
SPEAKER_03: It's a way of rooting where you are.
44:03
SPEAKER_03: Hey, that's for Merito, that's for demo, and that's for clone.
44:08
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't have to be for everyone, really, depending on what the concept is.
44:14
SPEAKER_03: But our essence comes from those products.
44:21
SPEAKER_03: our interest comes from discovering new things, you know.
44:27
SPEAKER_03: And that's what motivates us,
44:29
SPEAKER_03: you know,
44:30
SPEAKER_03: to be able to find new things that can teach us,
44:37
SPEAKER_03: you know,
44:37
SPEAKER_03: that can show us new
44:43
SPEAKER_03: new things and maybe to show us new places because in order to get to those products,
44:52
SPEAKER_03: you go to the place and then you find a community that is so interesting.
45:00
SPEAKER_03: that has so many things to show you,
45:06
SPEAKER_03: if they feel also comfortable with the idea of sharing it,
45:15
SPEAKER_03: because they value also what you're doing.
45:18
SPEAKER_03: And then we start this mutual thing of appreciating what we are all doing.
45:28
SPEAKER_03: from what they are, because right now also, the people that work with Jaime in Cartagena that find this
45:39
SPEAKER_03: in the backyard,
45:41
SPEAKER_03: you know,
45:41
SPEAKER_03: and they were,
45:42
SPEAKER_03: you know,
45:42
SPEAKER_03: everything was going to waste and they were like,
45:45
SPEAKER_03: okay,
45:45
SPEAKER_03: so what do we do with this?
45:47
SPEAKER_03: And then, you know, the restaurants started using it because, oh, this is really cool.
45:52
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
45:52
SPEAKER_03: look at this thing that tastes kind of like peppery and we can use it in the
45:57
SPEAKER_03: cocktail and it's amazing,
46:00
SPEAKER_03: you know?
46:01
SPEAKER_03: that has a lot of power to be able to reach to these new things that are there and
46:12
SPEAKER_03: they're little treasures.
46:15
SPEAKER_03: But sometimes they're not at the first contact with these products.
46:22
SPEAKER_03: Some of them are not easy to use really because they're so new.
46:27
SPEAKER_03: And the flavor profiles and the textures and everything,
46:30
SPEAKER_03: it's kind of like,
46:32
SPEAKER_03: wow,
46:32
SPEAKER_03: so how do we work with this?
46:37
SPEAKER_03: But that's also...
46:39
SPEAKER_03: cool thing because it motivates you to to push yourself to to create you know to to
46:47
SPEAKER_03: be able to to give more value to something that it you know it wasn't value wasn't
46:55
SPEAKER_03: given so you know what's valuable no caviar and foie gras and all this all this
47:02
SPEAKER_03: fancy stuff and um
47:05
SPEAKER_03: that we always saw as the pinnacle of what's supposed to be the most elite products, but then
47:18
SPEAKER_03: Really, what are we talking about?
47:21
SPEAKER_03: Who puts the value on what?
47:25
SPEAKER_03: So you find all this stuff that we don't really know how valuable it is.
47:32
SPEAKER_03: These bees that create this honey that it's kind of like really acid and they don't have this.
47:42
SPEAKER_03: Wow, this is amazing stuff.
47:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the stingless bees.
47:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's crazy.
47:48
SPEAKER_01: That'd be so nice.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like my bees just sting me all the time.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I hear what both of you are saying.
47:57
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a long pathway between the awareness of what we have around us to the
48:05
SPEAKER_01: point to where something's,
48:08
SPEAKER_01: where either it's an environment or a culture or the product itself is getting exploited.
48:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:17
SPEAKER_01: To where using the product is more destructive than creating the awareness around it.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
48:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:27
SPEAKER_01: There's a long path between these Amazonian peanuts compared with like acai or
48:34
SPEAKER_01: quinoa to where huge market shifts can totally change and disrupt ancestral
48:44
SPEAKER_01: traditions and
48:46
SPEAKER_01: and things like that.
48:47
SPEAKER_01: And like you said,
48:50
SPEAKER_01: like a lot of these things are just growing in someone's backyard and most people
48:55
SPEAKER_01: just have forgotten what to do with them.
48:57
SPEAKER_01: And we really don't know what to do with them.
49:02
SPEAKER_01: You know,
49:03
SPEAKER_01: it's like in a modern life,
49:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
49:06
SPEAKER_01: that's just like,
49:07
SPEAKER_01: they've been kind of just X'd out of,
49:11
SPEAKER_01: you know,
49:12
SPEAKER_01: society,
49:12
SPEAKER_01: I guess.
49:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:16
SPEAKER_03: But it's great,
49:18
SPEAKER_03: as long as it's controlled also,
49:20
SPEAKER_03: as you say,
49:22
SPEAKER_03: because then,
49:23
SPEAKER_03: oh,
49:24
SPEAKER_03: great,
49:24
SPEAKER_03: we discovered this new stuff,
49:26
SPEAKER_03: and for some reason,
49:29
SPEAKER_03: someone grabbed it and saw a huge potential,
49:32
SPEAKER_03: and boom,
49:33
SPEAKER_03: it broke this...
49:36
SPEAKER_03: And they changed everything for that product instead of,
49:38
SPEAKER_03: you know,
49:39
SPEAKER_03: keeping it,
49:40
SPEAKER_03: you know,
49:41
SPEAKER_03: focused on maybe what we were talking about before that you asked me,
49:46
SPEAKER_03: you know,
49:46
SPEAKER_03: how do you maintain the focus?
49:47
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, it's the same.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you keep it in use.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: And discover is a bad word, you know, as a lot of people always point out.
49:57
SPEAKER_01: It's like nothing is ever discovered.
49:59
SPEAKER_01: Somebody's already been using whatever it is.
50:02
SPEAKER_01: It's just...
50:04
SPEAKER_01: know bringing it back into use in a way that you know makes sense yeah i guess i
50:11
SPEAKER_00: don't know i i have a question about um this balance that i think is motivating for
50:20
SPEAKER_00: you to try to to you know just keep or or it's inspiring between the simple and the
50:28
SPEAKER_00: complex
50:30
SPEAKER_00: And I have heard you talking about that,
50:32
SPEAKER_00: like how aesthetically and in everything you do,
50:37
SPEAKER_00: there is always some playing around that,
50:42
SPEAKER_00: right?
50:42
SPEAKER_00: Like keep it single, but also in the process of innovating, making it complex in different ways.
50:50
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I would love to hear about that.
50:56
SPEAKER_03: You mean in what we create?
50:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, dishes, visuals, the restaurant, all the work you do with design.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, it's this, right?
51:09
SPEAKER_00: It's this peaceful, simple, genuine look, but obviously there is so much complexity in it.
51:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
51:17
SPEAKER_03: No, there's a lot of thought behind.
51:19
SPEAKER_03: We think about everything.
51:22
SPEAKER_03: We always question ourselves to how can we make something a little better or more
51:31
SPEAKER_03: coherent or more connected to everything.
51:35
SPEAKER_03: And yes, it's a daily basis, the process for us to...
51:43
SPEAKER_03: constantly feel everything and to see how how how you know it makes us feel first
51:52
SPEAKER_03: no because we think really about ourselves first you know we enjoy we live in this
51:59
SPEAKER_03: place you know we started you know every day we are here and if you're not you
52:04
SPEAKER_03: don't feel well where we are but it's kind of difficult not to go
52:10
SPEAKER_03: and to kind of like
52:16
SPEAKER_03: throw yourself to this life that from time to time it can consume you.
52:25
SPEAKER_03: So thinking about that, we also try to be original, to try to express ourselves in a different way.
52:41
SPEAKER_03: Also, we try to find our own path.
52:45
SPEAKER_03: And we always try to have that really, really alive.
52:51
SPEAKER_03: And it's not always easy because we always make mistakes.
52:56
SPEAKER_03: And you have to be able to confront and to be able to assume that you're going to
53:03
SPEAKER_03: make mistakes or something's not going to go totally right at the first time.
53:09
SPEAKER_03: or it's not going to taste so great or that base or that part of it that you designed with
53:16
SPEAKER_03: the artisan at the end you put it there and it kind of like you know it didn't
53:21
SPEAKER_03: quite fit you know didn't quite you know made you feel what you thought that it was
53:27
SPEAKER_03: going to make you feel so visually in the plate you know i come from from from many
53:36
SPEAKER_03: uh kitchens that you know in each kitchen the visual aspect you know was really you
53:43
SPEAKER_03: know you you kind of like live it and it's it's
53:46
SPEAKER_03: It's in you, you know?
53:47
SPEAKER_03: So in each kitchen I had to learn how to plate,
53:52
SPEAKER_03: you know,
53:53
SPEAKER_03: in the way that in that place plated,
53:56
SPEAKER_03: you know,
53:57
SPEAKER_03: to make their own style.
54:00
SPEAKER_03: But then in Merito, we try to find our own way.
54:04
SPEAKER_03: So sometimes when we played something and we're like,
54:07
SPEAKER_03: oh man,
54:08
SPEAKER_03: this kind of looks too similar to that,
54:11
SPEAKER_03: which is great.
54:12
SPEAKER_03: It's beautiful and it will work perfectly.
54:16
SPEAKER_03: But then we're like, okay, so how does that feel here?
54:21
SPEAKER_03: How does that feel in that table around that Adobe wall with this person serving it?
54:30
SPEAKER_03: Everything has to, we question it.
54:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
54:36
SPEAKER_03: So it's really important for us to be able to
54:40
SPEAKER_03: always achieve that impact that sets you in that space, in that moment, in that table, in the street.
54:55
SPEAKER_03: It has to talk about where we are in Barranco,
54:59
SPEAKER_03: It's a lot of contrast.
55:02
SPEAKER_03: If you're walking around Barranco and it's the honk of the horn of the bus and the
55:09
SPEAKER_03: taxi and the motorcycle and it's chaos and then you enter this little world.
55:15
SPEAKER_03: And it's like, wow, no, what's going on in here?
55:17
SPEAKER_03: And then you find all these products that, which a lot of color and it's, it's, it's cool.
55:24
SPEAKER_03: You know,
55:25
SPEAKER_03: it's,
55:25
SPEAKER_03: um,
55:25
SPEAKER_03: you know,
55:26
SPEAKER_03: that,
55:26
SPEAKER_03: that thing,
55:27
SPEAKER_03: it's,
55:27
SPEAKER_03: it's,
55:28
SPEAKER_03: uh,
55:28
SPEAKER_03: it's something that,
55:29
SPEAKER_03: you know,
55:29
SPEAKER_03: makes us,
55:31
SPEAKER_03: uh,
55:32
SPEAKER_03: feel really special.
55:33
SPEAKER_03: No.
55:34
SPEAKER_03: And I think that's what we thrive for.
55:38
SPEAKER_01: So you, you, you've mentioned the kind of visuals and aesthetics and I wanted to, uh,
55:44
SPEAKER_01: bring up this,
55:45
SPEAKER_01: uh,
55:45
SPEAKER_01: Venezuelan artist you mentioned to me when we were in,
55:48
SPEAKER_01: uh,
55:49
SPEAKER_01: Terrapoto,
55:50
SPEAKER_01: uh,
55:51
SPEAKER_01: Shero and now way.
55:54
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
55:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:55
SPEAKER_01: He is, am I pronouncing that right?
55:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
55:59
SPEAKER_03: I think.
56:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
56:01
SPEAKER_03: It's easier to just call him shadow when, when we talk to him, he's like, no, you just call me shadow.
56:06
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
56:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
56:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
56:08
SPEAKER_01: But he, so he's from like the Alto Orinoco, Venezuelan Amazon.
56:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
56:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
56:15
SPEAKER_01: Since you mentioned to me,
56:16
SPEAKER_01: I started following him on Instagram and just looking at his work,
56:22
SPEAKER_01: and it's really beautiful.
56:24
SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
56:25
SPEAKER_01: But I see the influence in your plating and things and how it comes out.
56:30
SPEAKER_01: It's like all these geometric shapes and patterns and old colors inspired by nature.
56:35
SPEAKER_01: And how...
56:43
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how how did he kind of make his way into your food and like
56:49
SPEAKER_01: You actually know him.
56:50
SPEAKER_01: Do you talk to him?
56:52
SPEAKER_01: Do you ever show him dishes?
56:54
SPEAKER_03: We talked on the phone.
56:55
SPEAKER_03: No,
56:56
SPEAKER_03: we talked on the phone once because we tried to do a collaboration with them for
57:01
SPEAKER_03: him to paint stuff for us that we find amazing.
57:10
SPEAKER_03: His art is really something really special.
57:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
57:15
SPEAKER_03: But,
57:15
SPEAKER_03: you know,
57:16
SPEAKER_03: the first connection that I had with them was before opening Merito in the team of,
57:21
SPEAKER_03: you know,
57:21
SPEAKER_03: the design team was asked me to send them images and information of what I felt that,
57:28
SPEAKER_03: you know,
57:28
SPEAKER_03: what really caught my attention and what I really liked.
57:33
SPEAKER_03: focusing on the Amazon because they felt that,
57:36
SPEAKER_03: you know,
57:37
SPEAKER_03: Merito had an identity from the Amazon because the arepas from the Amazon and all this,
57:45
SPEAKER_03: you know,
57:47
SPEAKER_03: kind of stuff that they saw,
57:49
SPEAKER_03: you know,
57:50
SPEAKER_03: they felt that that was the path to go.
57:52
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, I grabbed it and I started looking and I didn't want to fall into the trivial things
58:00
SPEAKER_03: side of the Amazon.
58:02
SPEAKER_03: I wanted to find something else.
58:06
SPEAKER_03: And then I saw Arte Rupestre.
58:10
SPEAKER_03: How do you say in English?
58:12
SPEAKER_03: Cave paintings.
58:13
SPEAKER_03: Cave paintings and rock kind of things that you find.
58:17
SPEAKER_03: That's something that I really enjoy.
58:18
SPEAKER_03: All those things that nobody really knows what they are.
58:29
SPEAKER_03: They've been there for years and who knows who painted them.
58:33
SPEAKER_03: And I saw his art and he looked kind of like that and he's from,
58:38
SPEAKER_03: you know,
58:39
SPEAKER_03: he was born in that jungle,
58:41
SPEAKER_03: no?
58:42
SPEAKER_03: And he has his own way of, you know, interpreting what he lived.
58:51
SPEAKER_03: in that jungle, you know, and what he grew up with and his own style.
58:56
SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, for me it's really inspiring, you know, to find that.
59:01
SPEAKER_03: And I kind of like grab,
59:03
SPEAKER_03: you know,
59:03
SPEAKER_03: all those visuals and then,
59:05
SPEAKER_03: you know,
59:07
SPEAKER_03: in a way it's exposed in the food,
59:10
SPEAKER_03: you know,
59:11
SPEAKER_03: in the play.
59:12
SPEAKER_03: And also maybe in a napkin that has a little detail there that it's grabbed from there.
59:21
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, everything's there.
59:25
SPEAKER_03: In nature,
59:26
SPEAKER_03: in art,
59:28
SPEAKER_03: in other people's art,
59:30
SPEAKER_03: in other people's plating,
59:31
SPEAKER_03: that you find something interesting there.
59:33
SPEAKER_03: And then you try to reinterpret it in your own way.
59:41
SPEAKER_03: You know,
59:43
SPEAKER_03: the other,
59:44
SPEAKER_03: the tostadas,
59:45
SPEAKER_03: you know,
59:46
SPEAKER_03: the knives that you see kind of like shading,
59:49
SPEAKER_03: they came from another artist,
59:52
SPEAKER_03: I forget the name now,
59:53
SPEAKER_03: that,
59:53
SPEAKER_03: you know,
59:53
SPEAKER_03: he paints all these paintings with degrading colors.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_03: and then it was cool because then they saw a documentary about basquiat no the the
1:00:06
SPEAKER_03: guy you know the guy from in new york no yeah um and and he was kind of explaining
1:00:14
SPEAKER_03: his heart and he uses a lot of symbols from you know that it's and that came from a
1:00:20
SPEAKER_03: book that you know that that each symbol has a meaning so in his paintings he kind
1:00:28
SPEAKER_03: of like uses all this
1:00:31
SPEAKER_03: uh, symbols to, you know, you know, express himself.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_03: So that's really interesting.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_03: So I grabbed that idea and I tried to implement it in,
1:00:42
SPEAKER_03: in,
1:00:42
SPEAKER_03: in the gastronomy and in a way to play it or to create a new space.
1:00:46
SPEAKER_03: And yeah.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_01: So before you opened Merito was, was Central the last place you worked at before opening Merito?
1:00:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:00:57
2016.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_01: And how long were you there?
1:01:01
SPEAKER_01: Two years.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_01: Okay, two years.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_01: I always think it was like five or six years even.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it was just because I was around a lot then and I saw you a lot then.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it was just two years.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_01: But when you opened Merito,
1:01:15
SPEAKER_01: did you feel like you,
1:01:17
SPEAKER_01: because Central was already getting a ton of attention then,
1:01:19
SPEAKER_01: did you feel like you were supposed to open like a little Central or something like that?
1:01:26
SPEAKER_01: No.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_01: No.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_03: Not at all.
1:01:30
SPEAKER_03: I wanted to do something way different than what it is today.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_03: I wanted to open, you know, a hipster arepera, no?
1:01:41
SPEAKER_01: That was the idea for Marital, a hipster?
1:01:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_03: But then,
1:01:44
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:01:44
SPEAKER_03: my consultants,
1:01:47
SPEAKER_03: they were like,
1:01:47
SPEAKER_03: okay,
1:01:48
SPEAKER_03: Juan,
1:01:48
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:01:48
SPEAKER_03: it's great,
1:01:49
SPEAKER_03: your idea,
1:01:50
SPEAKER_03: and,
1:01:50
SPEAKER_03: you know.
1:01:52
SPEAKER_03: yeah yeah but but really really you know do you do you see yourself doing that now
1:01:57
SPEAKER_03: or yeah you know the or do you find yourself because you know everything that you
1:02:02
SPEAKER_03: show us you know your instagram your everything you know tends to go and you know
1:02:09
SPEAKER_03: this way and i was like okay okay okay let's do it but but it wasn't really you
1:02:15
SPEAKER_03: know never tend um with the idea of um of having a
1:02:20
SPEAKER_03: gastronomic restaurant, really.
1:02:23
SPEAKER_03: You know,
1:02:23
SPEAKER_03: I wanted to make a restaurant,
1:02:25
SPEAKER_03: a really casual restaurant,
1:02:27
SPEAKER_03: but you can still feel it in a way,
1:02:29
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:02:30
SPEAKER_03: with the a la carte menu and all the sharing and the thing is that,
1:02:35
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:02:36
SPEAKER_03: now we,
1:02:37
SPEAKER_03: yeah,
1:02:39
SPEAKER_03: we're falling into more,
1:02:40
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:02:41
SPEAKER_03: depth into the,
1:02:44
SPEAKER_03: of the elaborations of the dishes,
1:02:47
SPEAKER_03: you know.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_03: So in that way that makes it more mature and, you know, it is there, but it wasn't the idea already.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_01: So I guess the question is like, how, how did that depth developed?
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: Like,
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:03:03
SPEAKER_01: you started with something and it's really not that different than it was,
1:03:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't think when it,
1:03:09
SPEAKER_01: when it started,
1:03:11
SPEAKER_01: but you started with something that was intended to be pretty casual.
1:03:16
SPEAKER_01: But still creative.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_01: Like, where does the depth come from?
1:03:22
SPEAKER_01: Just from doing the work and it just, like, bit by bit?
1:03:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_03: The first really moment of me realizing that I had to do a different type of cooking,
1:03:38
SPEAKER_03: let's say,
1:03:39
SPEAKER_03: because I'm a cook,
1:03:41
SPEAKER_03: first of all.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_03: That's what I do.
1:03:47
SPEAKER_03: where I had to
1:03:49
SPEAKER_03: really confront my reality was when the place,
1:03:56
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:03:57
SPEAKER_03: the actual space of Merito was being created and the wood is coming together and,
1:04:06
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:04:07
SPEAKER_03: now you start feeling the space and it felt really,
1:04:10
SPEAKER_03: oh wow,
1:04:11
SPEAKER_03: this is nice,
1:04:12
SPEAKER_03: no?
1:04:14
SPEAKER_03: This is more than what I really thought because
1:04:20
SPEAKER_03: The architects, you know, because you work with other artists.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_03: At the end, you know, everyone focused on the chef, but, you know, the chef...
1:04:29
SPEAKER_03: needs all these other artists around,
1:04:34
SPEAKER_03: artisans and everything that come together and they want to make the plates and the
1:04:41
SPEAKER_03: silverware and everything.
1:04:43
SPEAKER_03: So when the architects, I didn't quite understand it at that moment how things happened really.
1:04:53
SPEAKER_03: of creating an actual space, designing and everything.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_03: But then when it starts to come together, I'm like, wow, this is really nice.
1:05:03
SPEAKER_03: And I cannot make the food here that I thought that I was gonna make.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_03: So I think I have to push myself a little, deviate myself to where I thought I was gonna go.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_03: Because this space demands another type of cooking.
1:05:27
SPEAKER_03: The space really was the one who showed me what I had to do, really, in a way.
1:05:34
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the space is very, it's kind of minimalist, right?
1:05:39
SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, it's lots of wood.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_01: And then the adobe, the adobe was there, right?
1:05:45
SPEAKER_01: It's just natural from the building.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we exposed everything.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_03: It was all, you know, covered.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_03: And the main reason that I wanted that space was because of the adobe walls and the size of it.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_03: You know, being my first restaurant, I felt that smaller was going to be easier, you know.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_03: So I didn't want to go bigger.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_03: And I felt that, you know, that was the right place.
1:06:12
SPEAKER_01: But smaller and reasonable...
1:06:16
SPEAKER_01: rent as well.
1:06:17
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like you weren't like right in the middle of Barranco, kind of like a side street.
1:06:22
SPEAKER_01: You weren't looking like high profile Miraflores.
1:06:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:06:27
SPEAKER_03: No, I always wanted to be in Barranco.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_03: I felt that,
1:06:30
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:06:30
SPEAKER_03: that the vibe here,
1:06:32
SPEAKER_03: uh,
1:06:34
SPEAKER_03: really,
1:06:35
SPEAKER_03: uh,
1:06:36
SPEAKER_03: it was going to be able to,
1:06:39
SPEAKER_03: to connect with,
1:06:41
SPEAKER_03: uh,
1:06:42
SPEAKER_03: with our identity now.
1:06:44
SPEAKER_03: And we were going to be able to connect both ways.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_03: And there's a lot of art here, music, a lot of self-expression, and it's freedom.
1:06:57
SPEAKER_03: So in a way, Merito needs that.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_03: It feeds from that.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_03: I feel from that.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_03: And it made total sense to be here.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_03: I always wanted to be here.
1:07:12
SPEAKER_03: And I enjoyed places that have a history,
1:07:16
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:07:17
SPEAKER_03: that feel that they've been through a lot,
1:07:19
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:07:20
SPEAKER_03: that they have something,
1:07:21
SPEAKER_03: a history to share.
1:07:24
SPEAKER_03: And,
1:07:25
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:07:25
SPEAKER_03: that also because I find it,
1:07:28
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:07:29
SPEAKER_03: really important to be able to connect with the food because food,
1:07:33
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:07:34
SPEAKER_03: it's connected to that earth,
1:07:36
SPEAKER_03: to that adobe,
1:07:37
SPEAKER_03: to everything.
1:07:39
SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, we're pretty happy.
1:07:42
SPEAKER_03: And people ask us if we're ever going to move to a bigger place.
1:07:45
SPEAKER_03: And we're like, no.
1:07:48
SPEAKER_03: No, no, we're staying here.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_03: So we were able to grab the other space,
1:07:54
SPEAKER_03: and now we're working on maybe adjusting this space that now it's a production area
1:08:03
SPEAKER_03: to maybe an area where we can start to share ideas and to test more stuff,
1:08:11
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:08:12
SPEAKER_03: more ideas.
1:08:13
SPEAKER_03: products, because now we don't have a space, it's really small.
1:08:20
SPEAKER_03: We're always on the run.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_03: So I think after six years,
1:08:25
SPEAKER_03: we can now give,
1:08:31
SPEAKER_03: prioritize that space to give it a moment to be able to process ideas in a slower pace.
1:08:44
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
1:08:45
SPEAKER_00: Julie, do you have any other questions?
1:08:48
SPEAKER_00: No, just to say that this sounds very wise in a very humble way, me, this project.
1:08:57
SPEAKER_00: And it's both exciting and soothing at the same time.
1:09:01
SPEAKER_00: That's the feeling I get from all this.
1:09:04
SPEAKER_00: And the times that I have spoken with Juan Luis,
1:09:08
SPEAKER_00: I always get this sense of the project and the energy of the project.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know,
1:09:17
SPEAKER_00: maybe just to say that as overused as words in our world now are like connection,
1:09:26
SPEAKER_00: being present,
1:09:28
SPEAKER_00: intuition,
1:09:29
SPEAKER_00: they are so overused and sometimes lacking meaning.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_00: I think if there is a context in which they have sense,
1:09:35
SPEAKER_00: they make sense,
1:09:36
SPEAKER_00: it's in what Juan Luis is telling us.
1:09:38
SPEAKER_00: So I'm just happy about that.
1:09:41
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a good example of,
1:09:45
SPEAKER_00: being present in all the ways in which Juan Luis has told us and being intuitive
1:09:53
SPEAKER_00: and in tune with the place and people.
1:09:57
SPEAKER_00: So connection, I feel that the word makes sense here and I'm just happy about it.
1:10:04
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
1:10:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:10:08
SPEAKER_03: So nice to hear that.
1:10:09
SPEAKER_03: Really.
1:10:10
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:10:12
SPEAKER_01: All right, man.
1:10:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:10:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I could ask, I could talk to you all day.
1:10:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, me too, man.
1:10:16
SPEAKER_03: You know,
1:10:16
SPEAKER_03: it's,
1:10:17
SPEAKER_03: it's,
1:10:17
SPEAKER_03: it's,
1:10:18
SPEAKER_03: it's,
1:10:18
SPEAKER_03: and before,
1:10:19
SPEAKER_03: before it was more difficult for me because I had to,
1:10:23
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:10:24
SPEAKER_03: that's one thing that,
1:10:25
SPEAKER_03: that I have to be really thankful to Merito,
1:10:28
SPEAKER_03: you know?
1:10:29
SPEAKER_03: that really uh made me push myself and to to get out of my shelf no uh because the
1:10:38
SPEAKER_03: the first that's where the name comes from no really you know the merito really
1:10:43
SPEAKER_03: means
1:10:45
SPEAKER_03: confronting your fears.
1:10:48
SPEAKER_03: In life, I think that's what we come to.
1:10:52
SPEAKER_03: We really come to learn about ourselves and to push ourselves to confront
1:11:01
SPEAKER_03: everything that really is difficult for you in life.
1:11:06
SPEAKER_03: So for me,
1:11:07
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:11:07
SPEAKER_03: the first thing was cooking in that kitchen table in front of,
1:11:13
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:11:14
SPEAKER_03: you guys and to start sharing and to connect with you because I was really
1:11:22
SPEAKER_03: comfortable in my own little world and secure in my kitchen and
1:11:26
SPEAKER_03: Don't bother me, man.
1:11:28
SPEAKER_03: So in a way,
1:11:30
SPEAKER_03: I'm really thankful that now I have a way of being able to communicate really what
1:11:41
SPEAKER_03: I feel because I put that in practice thanks to confronting that fear.
1:11:49
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:11:50
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a perfect place to end.
1:11:53
SPEAKER_01: Gracias, Juan Luis.
1:11:55
SPEAKER_00: No, thanks to you.
1:11:57
SPEAKER_00: It was great.
1:11:59
SPEAKER_01: All right, man.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_01: See you in Lima sometime soon.
1:12:01
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_00: Bye.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_00: All right.
1:12:04
SPEAKER_00: Gracias.
1:12:05
SPEAKER_00: Ciao.
1:12:06
SPEAKER_03: Gracias.
1:12:07
SPEAKER_03: Ciao.
1:12:08
SPEAKER_03: See you.
1:12:09
SPEAKER_01: Bye-bye.
1:12:10
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, everyone, for listening.
1:12:13
SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoyed that episode with Juan Luis Martinez from Merito in Lima, Peru.
1:12:20
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't subscribed to the newsletter yet, go to newworlder.com and subscribe.
1:12:24
SPEAKER_01: Also, check us out on YouTube.
1:12:27
SPEAKER_01: This entire episode will be there.
1:12:30
SPEAKER_01: I hope.
1:12:31
SPEAKER_01: If I can figure out how to edit videos.
1:12:34
SPEAKER_01: But I think I got it.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_01: And a big thank you to my friend Pat Buzzard for providing the music to the show.
1:12:40
SPEAKER_01: Find out more about Pat at patbuzzard.com.