You have done the exercise of counting how many clients you serve throughout the year. And the calculation says that 500,000 people pass by one of the establishments that the chef Ricard Camarena (Bárig, Valencia, 49 years old) has open with his seal in Valencia. There are six: Central Bar, a bar in the Central market of Valencia; Ricard Camarena Restaurant, with three tasting menus for 165 and 210 euros, where it has two stars and a green star awarded by Michelin, and three Repsol soles; Canalla Bistró, with an informal and eclectic proposal, which combines flavors of Mexican, Japanese and New York cuisine, where the pastrami sandwich, the slightly spicy vegetable tempura or the steamed Peking pork bread have stood out since its opening in 2012; Regular, with homemade and Mediterranean cuisine, located in the Colón Market; Bar and Ricard Camarena Events, dedicated to the organization of celebrations. “We have counted the number of people who drink from a café in the market, through whose bar more than 200,000 can pass, from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. people, to a tasting menu of 210 euros in the gastronomic, where we receive between 5,000 and 6,000 customers a year,» explains the chef and businessman, sitting in the elegant bar of the most elegant establishment, framed in the Bombas Gens art center, with ceilings up to eight meters high and brick walls, where it moved in 2017.More informationThe key to its business model is diversification, a heterogeneous proposal that encompasses different consumption options and different average prices. “Our concepts are different and complementary, which gives us versatility, something that gives us feedback and builds customer loyalty. The same person can enjoy different moments and spaces. The market bar works only when the market is open and I love that, because otherwise it would be decontextualizing it,” he adds. The customer profile varies depending on the time of day and the proposal of the establishment. “Yesterday, here [por el jueves, en Ricard Camarena Restaurant] It was full and I only spoke Spanish with one table, and they were Colombians.” He is reasonably satisfied with what he has achieved in the last 12 years. He has turned around a business model that was not working and that had left him bankrupt. Two years ago he had closed the Arrop restaurant in Gandía, with which he earned a Michelin star. He had also lowered the blinds on another concept, Food. He “wanted to have a gastronomic restaurant, but he also needed another concept to be able to develop other ideas.” He was broke. “Very ruined, I had debts and no income. We stay my wife [Mª Carmen Bañuls, su socia en todos los negocios] and I alone, on the street, with nothing and wanting to do things.” But, as it says, God squeezes, but does not suffocate.Ricard Camarena, last Thursday, in the restaurant's kitchen, preparing one of his dishes, red shrimp, zucchini flower and lemon. Mònica Torres The suppliers helped him: “I told them that I had interesting projects and they bought it for me to start again. new without endorsements.” Shortly after, she received an offer to take his gastronomic proposal to the Ramses restaurant in Madrid, where she spent three years. An exhaust valve. Little by little he was forging a business group that employs a staff that ranges between 150 and 170 people – he clarifies that he does not have interns filling jobs – and has a turnover of eight million euros. “We are a profitable group. We have the obligation to be, to earn money, to pay our employees better and to serve our suppliers well.”Camarena is serious and thoughtful, not given to frivolity, and even less so with things like eating. He shows excessive concern for every detail, no matter how small it may seem. “I always think about what remains to be done, it is what interests me most, and not about what I have achieved.” And in that search to explore new projects he has launched Lettern Sin Desperdicio, an initiative that was born from the need and obligation to fully use all the ingredients with which he cooks. “We need to seek coherence and utilization. “Waste is in our DNA and we have seen that products can be developed with things that, supposedly, were worthless.” In this way it has interconnected all the restaurants belonging to the Camarena universe, «so we have increased the number of products and utilities, since the parts of some ingredients that are not cooked in one place are taken to another to make a dish.» , a cocktail, a drink or a sauce.” So, for example, he uses about 100 kilos of oranges a day, 25 kilos of lemons, he makes 300 kilos of salad, for which he uses kilos of carrots, whose peelings are used. Nothing is thrown into the trash can. And even less the leftover that is not used for vegetables, increasingly present in the chef's proposal, which looks at the garden and also at the sea. 
Dish of white asparagus, cold almond soup, mussels and citrus fruits. Image provided by Ricard Camarena Restaurant.Mikel PonceThe result is a line of new products, such as a creamy brioche flan, another pumpkin flan, a lemon curd, an orange jelly, a pickled zucchini, a citrus seed sauce with pickles, or a suzzette sauce. Another of the ranges that it has developed – I am teetotal and I had grown tired of ordering water and soft drinks – is non-alcoholic drinks, made with plant waste, such as pumpkin and ginger kombucha, elderberry kombucha, or umami white asparagus with tomato water, and which is part of the restaurant's liquid menu. Another of its novelties at Ricard Camarena Restaurant will become effective these days: the tasting menu will coexist with a menu, in which the diner will be able to choose several dishes between several starters, seconds and dessert, and which he had abandoned in 2009. “I feel the need for everything to evolve towards a proposal in which there is something more than a menu, since all this requires a lot of commitment of time and money on the part of the customer». And if one thing is clear, “it is that if you are not the best, you have to be unique.” You can follow EL PAÍS Gastro on Instagram and x.