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Pedro Hernández Castillo brought the inclusive cuisine of El Duende del Fuego to Kentia in a dinner marked by product, territory and hospitality
Pedro Hernández Castillo arrived from La Palma to Lanzarote with an added difficulty to the usual one in any four-handed dinner: your kitchen is not easy to put in a suitcase.
The chef of THE DIRED OF FIRE, in Los Llanos de Aridane, Sustainable Sun in the Repsol Guide, has built over years a very personal way of working in which both the final result and the path used to achieve it matter.. Processes designed to eliminate or replace allergens, intensive use of the product, searches for sweetness and flavor within the ingredient itself and a close relationship with the palm tree pantry are part of a philosophy that he himself defines as Readapted Conceptual Kitchen.
Transferring all that to other stoves required more than just having the recipes..
The dinner held at Kentia, at the Hotel La Isla y el Mar in Puerto del Carmen, ended up proving that the trip was possible.
And it also left one of those gastronomic nights in which the interest of the dishes coexisted with something equally appreciable.: the pleasure of receiving, share the table and make the diner feel comfortable.
A kitchen that asks why
To understand Pedro Hernández, we must move away from a too simple interpretation of his commitment to food intolerances..
We are not just dealing with a chef who adapts dishes for those who cannot consume gluten or lactose.. His approach starts from much further back: ask yourself what function each ingredient fulfills and look for, when necessary, another way to get it.
If sweetness is needed, The challenge is to discover where it can be obtained naturally.. If you are looking for depth, acidity, smoothness or intensity, The answer can be found in the product itself, in one of its components or in a technique capable of extracting what normally remains hidden.
That is why his cooking is not simply about removing. It consists of readapt.
That is the meaning of the Readapted Conceptual Cuisine that defines El Duende del Fuego: a proposal that has been growing from Hernández's professional experience, but also their concern to respond to changes in the way we eat without giving up enjoyment.
Gluten and lactose intolerances occupy an important place in this philosophy and the restaurant also tries to adapt its preparations to other food allergies.. But the ultimate goal is not to build a kitchen of restrictions.
It's just the opposite: get more people to enjoy it.
La Palma as a pantry
There is also an explicit commitment to the place from which you cook..
Pedro Hernández Castillo has developed his project focusing on agricultural products, the fruits, the meat and fish of La Palma, trying to control their quality from the origin to the moment they reach the plate.
The choice is not only gastronomic. The chef understands that working with palm products also means contributing to the maintenance of his agriculture., generate value around the primary sector and help conserve a landscape that is closely linked to what is later eaten.
His career explains part of that look. Before starting his personal project, he accumulated more than fifteen years of experience in restaurant and hotel kitchens in Switzerland., England, Catalonia and Andorra, In addition to working in La Palma as a chef and also teaching pastry.
The Fire Duende ended up becoming the place to bring together all those experiences. And that philosophy was the one that traveled to Kentia.
When the guest kitchen needs a host kitchen
Precisely for this reason it is worth stopping at something that diners rarely notice..
A cuisine so linked to specific processes does not reproduce automatically when changing restaurants. The spaces are different, teams change, The preparations need preparation and the service rhythms are not the same either..
There the work of the Kentia resident kitchens. The host team had to understand the preparations, accompany the guest chef and adapt his dynamics so that for a few hours a cuisine conceived and developed in La Palma could be expressed naturally in Lanzarote.
This silent work is also part of an authentic four-hand dinner.
It is not enough to lend a stove. You have to make room in them.
Pitaya, tune and a declaration of intent
The dinner began precisely by looking at the product.
pitaya juice, bread with oil and roasted watermelon they formed the first snack game. Three morsels with which to begin to understand where the proposal was going to go.: fruit, vegetal, concentración y sabores reconocibles llevados a terrenos menos previsibles.
La primera copa fue Princesa Fayna Brut Nature 2019, de Vega de Yuco, elaborado con uva Diego bajo la DO Lanzarote.
Después llegó el Tomate encurtido con tuno, queso y vinagreta, un plato donde acidez, fruta y lácteo se encontraban antes de pasar a uno de los productos que mejor permitió a Hernández explicar su particular manera de cocinar: el tuno indio.
Apareció convertido en Indian risotto, accompanied by Tailguén 2025, DO La Palma, elaborado con Listán Blanco y Albillo Criollo.
La cena empezaba también a construir un pequeño recorrido entre islas. Porque mientras Pedro Hernández traía La Palma a los fogones, las copas iban dibujando su propio mapa de Canarias.
Black pig and palm cow
The menu advanced into areas of greater intensity with the Canary black pork ham tempered with caramelized mojo.
The black pig provided one of the products with the greatest identity in the pantry of the Archipelago, while the mojo left its usual territory for a moment to enter the sweet and salty game that runs through much of Hernández's cuisine..
in the cup, Mission Grapes 2023, Listán Prieto from the DO La Palma made by Llanovid.
Then came probably the dish that could best summarize an entire philosophy in a few words.: Palm cow needle in its juice. Product and product essence. No need to fill out the name of artifices.
He accompanied her Molten Earth 2023, of the Tacoronte-Acentejo PDO, made from Listán Negro, Negramoll and Castellana Negra.
A strawberry called Strawberry
The desserts also maintained that desire to go to the bottom of the ingredient.
The first one appeared on the menu simply as "Strawberry". The name was almost programmatic after having heard Hernández explain his cuisine. When so much effort goes into discovering what a product can offer, There comes a time when it may not be necessary to give too many last names..
Then he appeared Fig ice cream with almond horchata, before the petit fours. To close the tour, Lanzarote returned to the cup with Breath 2024, Volcanic Malvasia from Bodegas Olivina.
La Palma and Lanzarote had ended up meeting in a quite natural way: not by great proclamations over territory, but through fruits, carnes, wines and different ways of interpreting the product.
Kentia adds reasons to return
Dinner also had another reading. Kentia has been building a gastronomic program that aims to bring new experiences to its usual offering and make its table increasingly familiar to those who live on the island as well.. Inviting chefs with their own personality is part of that path.
It doesn't seem to be so much about organizing exceptional dinners as about creating reasons to return: discover another chef, encounter another pantry or see how the kitchens of the house dialogue with a different way of understanding gastronomy.
And the experience doesn't end in the kitchen.. Natalia Bravo from Laguna, Head of Quality, and Carla Riera, general director of The Island and the Sea, They accompanied the evening with a kindness that deserves to be mentioned precisely because it was never fake..
They were pending, received, They explained and also left room for the night to happen.
Sometimes hospitality works exactly like this. You don't need to be noticed to be noticed..
A table where everyone can sit
In the end, perhaps the best way to understand Pedro Hernández's cuisine is to observe the apparent contradiction it contains.
It is a kitchen that is complex in its processes., but quite simple in its purposes.
Want to work with good products. You want to take advantage of everything these products can offer. He wants to respect the pantry of La Palma and contribute to its continued existence.. And it wants to ensure that an intolerance or an allergy does not necessarily turn the gastronomic experience into a series of renunciations..
All of this requires much more technique than what is later seen on the plate..
Not Kent, besides, had to get it far from home, and for this the work of the host kitchens was essential, capable of making their own, during one night, a way of cooking born several hundred kilometers away.
Pedro Hernández put the ideas and a philosophy developed over years. Kentia put the stove on, the team and especially warm hospitality.
Then came the prickly pear, the pitaya, the black pig, the palm cow, the fig, the wines and the conversations around the table.
And for a few hours The Fire Duende found a second home next to the sea in Lanzarote.
