The presentation of Taste 1973, Diego Schattenhofer's restaurant, at the Villa Cortés

A red ribbon on the door: how Taste 1973 was presented

Hotel Villa Cortés, Playa de las Américas (Arona, Tenerife), Saturday 22 December 2018.

Before the awards, before the ageing chambers and before the guides, there was a wooden door with a red ribbon. On Saturday 22 December 2018, the Hotel Villa Cortés publicly presented the restaurant that Diego Schattenhofer was going to run: Taste 1973. Two days later we told the story on Instagram with a line that still makes us smile: “The countdown has finally come to an end and we can at last reveal the big secret we’ve been keeping these past months”.

That was the secret: “We present the new @1973taste.restaurant! A new culinary adventure by chef @diegoschatten. Come and discover a unique proposal.” And it came with a date on the calendar: “Opening on 4 January!”

It’s worth telling this precisely, because there are two moments here, not one. On 22 December 2018 there was a presentation: ribbon-cutting, guests, the team lined up in the dining room and a kitchen debuting in front of people. The opening to the public came later, on 4 January 2019, and that is the date we have given ever since as the house’s birth. We wrote it this way on receiving the award for Best Consume Canario Restaurant 2022: “Since its opening in January 2019, Taste 1973 has been more than a restaurant.”

The day of the ribbon-cutting

Four photographs remain from that day, which we published on 24 December with a brief caption: “Images of our restaurant’s presentation last Saturday, 22 December.” In the first, the red ribbon crosses the door under the illuminated 1973 sign while a man with a microphone narrates the event, another cuts the ribbon and the guests wait to go in. There are no grand speeches in the photo; there is a house opening its doors.

The second image is the one we like most, and not for its beauty: for what it shows. The wooden floor is new, the light is warm and, in the background, the kitchen brigade waits in line in their hats and aprons alongside the hotel’s dining-room and reception staff. A restaurant isn’t presented with an à la carte menu alone: it’s presented with the people who are going to carry every service.

An open kitchen in front of the guests

The third photograph, in black and white, tells the trade side of the story. On the other side of the open-kitchen counter, one of the house’s cooks shows a group of guests some metal bowls; they film with their phones and hold glasses of wine. The scene sums up well what Taste 1973 was going to be: a kitchen that lets itself be watched, and that explains what it does while it does it.

The fourth photo is empty on purpose: the dining room set and silent, with the wooden tables, the placemats, the upholstered chairs and the red sofa at the back. It is the room waiting for its first diners, who would still take almost two weeks to arrive.

“Innovation, culture, science, experience…”

The Christmas weeks filled up with messages. On 27 December we published chef Erlantz Gorostiza’s congratulatory video, from the Martin Berasategui restaurant: “My best wishes for this new opening of Restaurante Taste 1973 at @villacortescom. I’m sure it will be a success with @diegoschatten at the helm.” That a colleague from that house took the trouble to record a video said a great deal about the moment.

That same day, Diego shared the gastronome lafuentedeblas’s account, who had been at the presentation and summed it up in a string of words that, years on, still describe the house’s work: “Innovation, culture, science, experience, knowledge, creativity, skill, flavours, tradition, aromas, team and attitude are some of the many qualities we could sense at the presentation of Restaurante 1973 Taste inside the Hotel Villa Cortés, which from 4 January opens its doors to the general public.” Diego replied as he always does: “Thanks, my friend.”

A year beginning

On 31 December 2018, with the restaurant still not open to the public, Diego closed the year with a photo in the kitchen and a short message: “2019 arrives with new dreams and hopes. Delighted to be part of the new @1973taste.restaurant! Happy 2019!”

Four days later, on 4 January, the house opened to the public exactly as announced. What came after — the research into the island’s produce, the Repsol Sun since 2023, the Michelin star since 2024 — is told in other articles on Canarian gastronomy in this journal and in the day-to-day work of Gastrosinapsis. But it all began here: at a wooden door with a red ribbon, on a Saturday in December, with the brigade lined up and the dining room still empty.

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Culinary Innovation Shines at Taste 1973: Diego Schattenhofer Wins the Best Consume Canario Restaurant Award 2022