Ivan Rodríguez Vivancos is el tiet, Catalan for “the uncle,” a nickname given to him by the cooks who worked under him at renowned fine-dining restaurant La Terraza del Claris. Today, “El Tiet” is at the helm of his own restaurant, away from the stressful environment of alta cocina, in a place where he can also transport his customers away from the stress of daily urban living.

In Spain, pork is serious business; it’s been a fundamental part of the diet here for millennia. Pigs were an important animal on the first Celtic farms and also for the Iberians (around the 6th century BCE), who would sell to other Mediterranean peoples salted and cured pork, as well as olive oil and wine. In that time, the Romans – who already loved and produced ham, even creating ham-shaped coins as a symbol of value – appreciated the ham from Iberian lands such as Tarraco, where, recently, a fossilized ham was found that was more than 2,000 years old (now that’s what we call aged!).

As a side benefit of his former life as a financial advisor, Xavier Maymo got to spend 20 years dining at some of Europe’s finest restaurants. When he would return home after his business trips, he would relax by recreating the dishes he had enjoyed at these restaurants in his own kitchen. His mother had taught him the basics of cooking when he was a kid, and his natural gifts and intuition allowed him to recall flavors and then to riff on them and invent new ideas. Over the years, Maymo also sought out many chefs in order to learn from them, and in the process he became friends with them.