- Written by: Chefluencer Editorial Team
A YOUNG CHEF CROSSES BORDERS, KNIFE IN HAND
London, already a whirring carousel of global cuisines, will gain a new centre of gravity this July — albeit briefly. From the 8th to the 12th, Carousel’s open kitchen on Charlotte Street will be home to Juan D’Onofrio, the 28-year-old Argentine chef behind Madrid’s much-lauded Chispa Bistró. The weeklong residency marks both D’Onofrio’s international debut and a rare opportunity to taste his fast-rising culinary language outside of Spain.
D’Onofrio, still disarmingly young despite his accolades, belongs to a generation of chefs for whom the kitchen is neither stage nor sanctuary but a tool for connection. He is less interested in culinary theatre than in building a vocabulary of trust — through texture, temperature, flavor. And it shows. At Chispa, dishes move quickly from instinct to plate: veal sweetbreads with beurre blanc and anchovies; grilled ox tongue served against oyster escabeche; and the now cult dessert of chocolate mousse with mushroom panna cotta and strawberries.
At Carousel, those signatures will be reimagined with British produce and London rhythm. “We’re not just exporting the menu,” D’Onofrio says. “We’re translating the idea behind it.”
For five nights, diners will experience that translation firsthand — eight courses adapted to what grows, swims, and grazes in the UK without diluting the soul of the original. It’s not replication. It’s conversation.
THE MENU, THE METHOD, THE FIRE
Let’s start with the shrimp. Red, Spanish, and poached, not in stock, but served in clarified banana broth, touched with palo cortado. The dish plays with sweetness, salinity, and that slippery in-between — an unlikely but elegant bridge from Andalusian sherry to tropical drift. Then comes ox tongue, kissed by the grill, placed alongside oyster escabeche and a parsley salad that crackles with acidity. Not far behind: smoked trout with vitello tonnato, that 1980s relic reborn, its mayonnaise anchored by anchovy and veal reduction rather than nostalgia.
Even the vegetables, often a quiet aside in pop-up menus, here get the headline treatment. Burnt tomato water, confit tomato, and chimichurri oil form a kind of triptych — not quite a gazpacho, more a distilled landscape. The baby gem is grilled and glossed with pistachio praline. The zucchini flower hides a scoop of zucchini ice cream — one of those dishes that makes you blink before it makes you smile.
And dessert? A final sleight of hand: mushroom panna cotta nested beneath chocolate mousse, softened by strawberries. A dish that could fail in less confident hands but here, like much of D’Onofrio’s cooking, walks the tightrope between play and precision.
This is not a greatest-hits playlist from Madrid. It’s something else entirely — a residency that reinterprets, rebuilds, and reacts to a new context without ever abandoning the spark that made Chispa shine in the first place.
CHISPA: A RESTAURANT BUILT ON ENERGY
Chispa means spark in Spanish — and the name fits. The restaurant opened in Madrid with the barest whisper in 2022 and quickly caught the attention of local critics and guidebooks. By 2023, it had secured its first Repsol Sun and a Michelin Recommendation. In 2024, D’Onofrio earned his first Michelin star. Not long after, tables became hard to book. It wasn’t hype. It was heat.
But Chispa is not just a chef’s restaurant. It’s a room built on shared tension — between kitchen and floor, wine and food, guest and plate. The team is small, just eight people, but tight-knit and fast-moving. Most nights, D’Onofrio is as visible in the dining room as he is in the kitchen. There is no pass, no wall, no line cooks performing like orchestra members behind glass. At Chispa, cooking is a conversation — one that flows between service and guest without ego, without polish.
“The energy comes from the team,” he says. “We’re not interested in being perfect. We want to be alive.”
THE ROAD TO LONDON, THE ROAD FROM BUENOS AIRES
Born in Buenos Aires in 1997, D’Onofrio was first drawn not to food but to ideas. He studied advertising before switching gears to enrol at the Lycée culinary school in Argentina. That dual training — creativity and craft — is still visible in his cooking. His plates often have a conceptual edge, but never at the expense of flavor. After a year in Buenos Aires, he moved to Barcelona to study pastry at Bellart and began collecting experiences like ingredients: stints at Mina in Bilbao (1* Michelin), and Santceloni in Madrid (2*, now closed), where he worked under chefs known for technical clarity and expressive restraint.
The pandemic forced a return to Argentina. There, he worked with Dante Liporace — one of the country’s more polarizing figures, formerly of ElBulli — at Mercado de Liniers. The lessons weren’t always easy, but they were sharp. By 2022, D’Onofrio had returned to Spain and launched Chispa — not as a nostalgia project or a homage to Argentina, but as a space to cook in his own language.
LONDON CALLING
In some ways, Carousel is the perfect match. Since 2014, it has hosted over 350 chefs from 80 cities and 50 countries. The model is simple but ambitious: a rotating cast of guest chefs paired with a resident team, each week producing a singular tasting menu tailored to the moment. Past residents have included Diego Rossi (Trippa, Milan), Jeremy Chan (Ikoyi, London), Deborah Fadul (Diacá, Guatemala), and Santiago Lastra (Kol, London via Mexico). Some stay for a week. Some come back. All bring something particular to the table.
Carousel’s kitchen is open-plan and high-pressure. It demands adaptation. No mise en place flown in. No team in tow. Each guest chef works with the house brigade, guided by local ingredients and the framework of trust. What you get, night after night, is never repetition. It’s performance — but performance rooted in preparation.
For D’Onofrio, it’s a test of flexibility and faith.
“This is not just about executing recipes,” he says. “It’s about letting go — and letting the ingredients lead.”
A MENU BUILT TO SPEAK TWO LANGUAGES
Here’s the full menu for the week of July 8 to 12, priced at £75:
- Burnt tomato water, confit tomato, chimichurri oil
- Red shrimp, clarified banana broth, palo cortado
- Grilled baby gem, pistachio praline
- Grilled ox tongue, oyster escabeche, parsley salad
- Smoked trout, vitello tonnato
- Veal sweetbreads, beurre blanc and anchovies
- Zucchini flower stuffed with zucchini ice cream, chilled chamomile broth
- Chocolate mousse, mushroom panna cotta, strawberries
It’s a tasting menu, yes, but one with pace. Nothing outstays its welcome. D’Onofrio’s plates tend to whisper rather than shout. They offer you a texture, a contrast, a decision. They don’t explain themselves. You choose how close to listen.
THE SCENE BEYOND THE PLATE
More than a showcase, this residency is a kind of friction test — what happens when Madrid meets London, when youthful ambition meets seasoned expectation. D’Onofrio doesn’t come to prove anything. He comes to translate.
That spirit fits neatly into Carousel’s broader philosophy: food as conversation, not performance. Since its early days in Marylebone and now in its Charlotte Street digs, the venue has built a reputation not just for its chef residencies, but for its open kitchen culture, its natural wine bar, and a connected mezcalería next door. It’s a place where the guests often know what’s happening before the press does. Where cooks, sommeliers, and designers cross paths. Where a Tuesday night can feel like a Friday — not because of noise, but because of intent.
For chefs like D’Onofrio, this kind of space offers a rare moment to stretch — to see their ideas reflected through a different lens, to work with new ingredients and a new team, and to share that spark with a different crowd.
THE FUTURE IS COOKING.
D’Onofrio is not the first young chef to leap borders with a set of tweezers and a suitcase. But he’s one of the few doing it without theatrics, without social media posturing, without chasing “New Nordic” shadows or staging a branded comeback tour. What he brings to Carousel is not a product but a practice of listening, responding, and building something new from what’s available.
There’s a reason his London menu avoids foie gras, caviar, and wagyu. He’s not here to impress. He’s here to cook.
And in a city that has long been hungry for meaning in its menus — not just technique or trend — this quiet, confident presence may be just the spark it needs.
Reservations for the Juan D’Onofrio x Carousel residency are open now at carousel-london.com. Dinner is served nightly from July 8 to 12. £75 per guest. Wine pairings are available. Limited seats.
Photos: Chispa Bistro