Taste 1973 at GastroCanarias 2025: two awards for the team and the "Sabores del Atlántico" presentation
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Two awards for Taste 1973’s kitchen at the 19th Canary Islands Championship
Some work done at home is better seen from outside the house. On 20 May 2025, at the Recinto Ferial in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the 19th Canary Islands Cooking Championship-Cabildo de Tenerife Grand Prize was decided — the contest that crowns the archipelago’s best chef every year — and two of our own finished at the top: Nahuel Campos Núñez was named Best Chef in the Canary Islands and Iván Alfaro was recognised as Best Kitchen Assistant.
We celebrated it the next day on Instagram, and we found no better way to say it: “Total pride at GastroCanarias 2025!” And a little further down, in the same post: “A team that represents everything we are: effort, talent and heart. Both are part of our house, led by the great Diego Schattenhofer, and today they shone like never before.” Nahuel himself left the line of the day, one that in the kitchen is worth an entire manual: “Octopus doesn’t go alone, it goes accompanied.”
A 135-minute final and a Canarian beef shin
The contest’s report was written by Diario de Avisos, which places the championship within the 10th Salón Gastronómico de Canarias-GastroCanarias (the islands’ gastronomy trade fair), held from 20 to 22 May 2025. The final brought together ten chefs and was decided in 135 minutes of work, with the main ingredient kept secret until the start: Canarian beef shin. There was also a second test based on a “surprise box” with thirty ingredients, the moment when technique alone is no longer enough and a cool head is needed.
The podium finished as follows: Nahuel Campos Núñez, first, with 1,500 euros and a gold trophy; Xavier Luis Boya, second, with 1,000 euros and a silver trophy; and Gran Canaria’s Iván Pulido Rodríguez, third, with 500 euros and a bronze trophy. The Best Kitchen Assistant award went to Iván Alfaro.
For us, the award also carries a nice thread of continuity. In 2024, in the previous edition of this same championship, Guillermo García Santos and Nahuel Núñez won the Canary Islands Chefs’ Absolute Championship representing the house; back then Nahuel was the assistant. A year on he signs first place with his full name and with another colleague from Taste 1973 beside him. That is not luck: it is a team that trains for it.
One honest clarification is worth making: Diario de Avisos’ report gives the names and results of the championship but does not mention the restaurant. That Nahuel Campos Núñez and Iván Alfaro belong to our team is something we report ourselves from Diego’s account, and that is how we publish it here.
“Sabores del Atlántico”: the presentation at the same fair
The fair gave us a second appointment that day. Diego Schattenhofer took part as a speaker with the talk “Sabores del Atlántico: redescubriendo nuestros pescados” (“Flavours of the Atlantic: rediscovering our fish”), devoted to fish maturation as a technique for bringing out its qualities and showcasing local produce. He put it this way: “I shared my view of fish maturation as a technique to bring out its qualities and pay tribute to the local produce of the Atlantic.”
That same session featured the presentation of the book “La magia de la carne de cabra madurada”, co-written with Dr María Fresno, which explores the culinary, nutritional and scientific value of this produce in depth. And it covered the Enzimático Marino project: protein, cold coagulation, enzymatic behaviour and the timing that fish must be given to reach their full potential. It is the same question we have spent years asking ourselves with fish maturation in Tenerife, put this time to a room of industry professionals.
The sum of both things is what we take away from those days: a presentation to open three days of show-cooking sessions and conversation, and two awards that belong not to a restaurant but to two chefs who spend the whole year preparing. Canarian cuisine defends itself this way, with local produce and local people winning in their own home.
Read the full report in Diario de Avisos: Nahuel Campos Núñez, vencedor el 19 Campeonato de Canarias de Cocina.
Presentation of the book "La magia de la carne de cabra madurada"