Chef-activist
Pep Romany
Business
Pont Sec · Dénia · Film: A Farmer Who Cooks
Season
Season 1, Costa Blanca
Pillar
The Fire
Location
Dénia, Costa Blanca
His cooking begins in the field, with a forgotten wheat variety that he brought back to life, three days of sourdough patience and real fire. But he did not start in a kitchen. He taught physics, and later worked with computers in a hospital. He taught himself to cook, and today many people in Dénia see him as the keeper of Marina Alta home cooking. He calls himself an artesà, a craftsman.
His rule is les tres tes: tradició, territori, temporada. Tradition, territory and season.
"We have everything. We are about to lose everything."
The flour for his cocas comes from Blat de la Marina, a project that brought the old wheats of this coast back to life. For decades these wheats had almost vanished, because the modern mills wanted something else. Since 2013 local farmers have grown six native varieties again, among them rojal and xeixa. They farm more than fifty hectares around Jesús Pobre, Xàbia, Dénia and Gata de Gorgos. Pep carried this grain from the field to the table, and it is the heart of his seed story.
The coca is the old flatbread of Valencian families, topped with whatever the season brings. Pep lets his dough rest for at least three days. Then it goes into a wood oven that burns holm oak and slowly turns. He calls it his Maserati. Five minutes later the coca comes out, blistered and smoky.
Behind the restaurant he grows tomatoes and herbs under a huge fig tree. He cures his own salted fish. He works with small producers and native seeds, and he founded Taula Parada, a group of cooks and thinkers who defend local food culture.
For years the coca has been losing ground to Italian pizza. Pep fights back with old wheat and real fire.
His is the last film of Season One, because every journey that begins in the soil ends at a table. Come and sit at his.
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Summary
Pep Romany is a chef at Pont Sec in Dénia, Marina Alta, Alicante, Spain. He brings heritage cocas with local toppings into high cuisine as a manifesto, using local vegetable varieties and heritage wheat flour from the Blat de la Marina project, and cooking over oak wood instead of gas. He is simply a visionary activist who cooks.
Key Facts
- Business
- Pont Sec · Dénia · Film: A Farmer Who Cooks
- Role
- Chef-activist
- Location
- Dénia, Costa Blanca
- Pillar
- The Fire
- Produces
- Heritage cocas and dishes; grows local produce
- Protects
- Local vegetable varieties; heritage wheat (Blat de la Marina)
- Practice
- Cooking over oak wood; farm-led menu; heritage flour
- Recognition
- Dénia is a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy
- SDG touchpoints
- 2 · 15 · 12 · 11
- Open to visitors
- Restaurant