Taste 1973 and Diego Schattenhofer Win Their First Michelin Star (MICHELIN Guide Spain 2024)
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A Star for Taste 1973 at the MICHELIN Guide Spain 2024 Gala
Auditori Fòrum · International Convention Centre of Barcelona (CCIB), Tuesday 28 November 2023.
Some nights split a restaurant’s life in two. Ours was the night of 28 November 2023: at the launch gala of the MICHELIN Guide Spain & Portugal 2024, held at the Auditori Fòrum of the International Convention Centre of Barcelona, Taste 1973 — Diego Schattenhofer’s restaurant at the Hotel Villa Cortés, in Playa de las Américas (Arona, Tenerife) — received its first Michelin star. We’ve worn it ever since: a Michelin star since 2024, retained in the 2025 and 2026 guides.
Diego shared the news that same night on Instagram, at 21:27, still wearing his gala jacket: “It is an enormous joy and pride to share with you that we have been awarded a Michelin star!” And he added, without holding back, what he had carried inside: “One of my greatest dreams has come true, after many years of work, dedication, commitment and love for such a beautiful craft as the world of gastronomy, that art of offering great service.”
The rest of that message was a list of thanks, and that’s no small detail: it says a lot about how we work here. Diego thanked “Mr Axel Gassmann and his family for believing in us and supporting this project”, the kitchen and front-of-house teams, the Villa Cortés-Europe Hotels family and every member of Gastrosinapsis. And, before anyone else in the trade, the primary sector: “fishermen, farmers, goatherds and livestock farmers, cheesemakers and many more”. He closed with Playa de Las Américas-Arona and Tenerife, “for supporting us from the very first moment”, with his partner, Cindy, “for standing by me, giving me light in the shadows throughout this journey”, and with his mother, Pochi, “for instilling in me the gift of work, of sacrifice, of perseverance, and for teaching me that dreams are goals!”.
The Star Went for a Walk Around the Hotel
Three days later, on 1 December, the distinction physically landed in Playa de las Américas. Diego posted a video of the Michelin Man touring the house with a caption that still makes us smile: “Father Christmas came early this Christmas.” And he explained it like this: “Our MICHELIN has already had a walk around our hotel and arrived at its new home; we’re very happy and proud of our new guest. Once again, many thanks to the Guide for valuing our work.”
On 7 December came the photo that really tells the story: the whole team in front of the restaurant door, with the trophy in the hands of one of the front-of-house team. “Our Taste 1973 team has grown. We’re now at full strength,” read the post on Diego’s and the restaurant’s accounts. A star isn’t won by a chef: it’s won by a kitchen brigade, a dining room, a hotel and an island.
Thirty-One New One-Star Restaurants, Two of Them in Tenerife
That edition of the guide added 34 new entries in Spain and Portugal, 31 of them with one star. In Tenerife there were two: ours and Haydée’s, in La Orotava, the restaurant of chef Víctor Suárez. With these two additions, as Diario de Avisos reported, the island came to hold nine stars across seven restaurants, and the Canary Islands gained five new stars in total, including the one for Bevir, in Gran Canaria. It wasn’t a night for one restaurant: it was a night for Canarian gastronomy.
What Lay Behind That Night
El Digital Sur summed it up better than we could the following day. It recalled that Diego is an Argentine chef with more than twenty years’ work in the Canary Islands, that he runs the kitchen at Taste 1973 within the Hotel Villa Cortés, a five-star Gran Lujo hotel, and that, behind the scenes, he leads Gastrosinapsis, the interdisciplinary team that acts as the house’s R&D&I department, with the scientist José Manuel Pérez de la Lastra among his companions on the journey. On the menu, two tasting menus: “Roque Guincho” and “Roque de Arona Hío”.
Nor was the star a starting point. Before it, we had already received the Best Consume Canario Restaurant Award 2022 and our first Repsol Sun — Repsol Sun since 2023 — and those recognitions came from the same place: asking the island’s produce what more it could give. That’s what didn’t change the day after the gala. The star didn’t tell us what to cook; it gave us room to keep asking.
Read the full story at El Digital Sur: Diego Schattenhofer recibe la Primera Estrella Michelin - 1973 Taste (Arona). The official list of new entries is on the MICHELIN Guide website.
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