Working underneath the tutelage of Jamie Oliver (tutelage sounds so appropriate when talking about Jamie Oliver) is certainly something to write home about, but easily the coolest thing about Diego Guillén (besides a beard of epic proportions) is his current title: Ice Cream Scientist. Ok, so I completely made that job title up, I’m not sure that’s what his business card reads but it should.
It’s a Friday afternoon and I find myself in the San Juan Tennis Club. An ominous looking building which from the outside looks like a Soviet construction but in the inside a thing Wes Anderson dreams of making over. It is the temporary laboratory of Diego Guillén and the 8 chefs that make up the Guilab Laboratorio de Helados team. I really had no idea what to expect, and after excusing myself to the restroom while the cooking equipment was being set up I was surprised to come back to Diego suiting himself up in black surgical gloves, a white lab coat and protective eyewear and little beakers filled with dulce de leche, and hazelnuts. This was serious business.