Javier Canteras

Tortilla española is the Spanish egg dish that looks deceptively simple and is almost impossible to execute perfectly under competition conditions, because the flip is real and the flip is live. Javier Canteras runs Urdaneta in Portland, Oregon, named for the Spanish navigator Andrés de Urdaneta, which tells you something about a chef who takes the specific geography of Spanish cuisine seriously.

Canteras confit his potato slices in olive oil at 275°F for twenty-five minutes before they went into the egg — fully tender, fully saturated, structurally integrated with the egg when set rather than separate inclusions. The egg-to-potato ratio ran two eggs per medium potato, and he beat the eggs only until just combined, not frothy, so the set was dense and custardy rather than airy. The flip came at ninety percent set on the bottom, still liquid on top, relying on the residual heat of the pan to finish it.

Urdaneta is named for a man who figured out how to navigate the Pacific. Canteras figured out how to flip a tortilla in front of cameras, which may be the harder problem.