Jon Sarabia is an atypical editor. With a degree in Business Administration and an MBA from IESE, the founder of Abalon Books has dedicated the bulk of his professional career to the banking sector (CaixaBank and Santander), to which he was linked for twenty years and became general director of CaixaBank Electronic Money and general director of Servicaixa, a company that was sold in 2011 to the Live Nation group (Ticketmaster). After deciding to take a "life break," the executive ended up entering the book sector by chance. "I like to eat and drink and I am a collector of cookbooks," explains Sarabia, who realized the potential of gastronomic books after writing Xemei: Venetian Cuisine in Barcelona, together with brothers Max and Stefano Colombo.
He spent a year researching the market and developed an editorial plan that was the seed of Planeta Gastro, a label that was born in 2016 and of which Sarabia was the collection director, with the publication of fifteen books that became the great benchmark in the sector. "We changed the format of cookbooks, innovating in concept and with a powerful graphic and photographic approach," explains the ideologue of Planeta Gastro. The book about the Barcelona restaurant Xemei was the first in the collection, followed by other titles such as Etxebarri ---the first book about Bittor Arginzoniz, owner of the third best restaurant in the world, translated into multiple languages---, Elkano or Oriol Balaguer.
Despite the success of this stage, Sarabia decided to disassociate himself from Grupo Planeta in 2018 to launch his own business project, the company Abalon Content, publisher of Abalon Books and which also generates audiovisual content, provides consulting services for brands and restaurants, and organizes very exclusive corporate events linked to gastronomy for clients, for example, from the private banking sector.
After opening a financing round that was subscribed by several partners linked to the gastronomy sector and the business world, Abalon Content began its journey in 2019, so it soon suffered the consequences of the pandemic, which has harmed its division of organization of gastronomic experiences in high-end restaurants. "In 2020 everything fell apart, we only organized one event, but in this second half of 2021 this business line has been reactivating," explains the businessman.
The editorial division, however, has been very fruitful and has just made a real splash by winning the National Gastronomy Award 2021 thanks to the book about the restaurant Disfrutar, a true editorial gem that has also received the award for best gastronomic book from Fuera de Serie magazine. Disfrutar, written by the acclaimed chefs Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch, and Mateu Casañas, is the sixth book published by Abalon Books, which debuted in October 2019 with Madrid Gastro. La nueva movida, the first book dedicated to the new wave of Madrid's restaurant scene.
Jerez, Manzanilla y Montilla. Vinos Tradicionales de Andalucía; L'Escaleta. El sabor de la montaña mágica; La Despensa Japonesa. Ingredientes y combinaciones Oriente-Occidente; and Luis Irizar. Maestro de maestros, are the other six books from the Abalon Books imprint. The young publishing house has just launched a new essay collection, the Colección Mostaza, with its seventh book: Animal cocinero. Una visión particular de la relación del hombre con la cocina, a compilation of about five hundred articles and essays published by Benjamín Lana in XL Semanal magazine or in the newspaper El Correo between 2014 and 2020.
"My vocation is to seek stories; I conceive each book as a project where the basis is rigorous and very well-edited content; we will only do things very well done," says Sarabia to summarize the philosophy of Abalon Books. With minimum print runs of 2,500 copies ---some have already been reprinted--- and presence in major bookstores, each illustrated book from the imprint is priced above 30 euros, although some reach 60 euros. This figure triples in the case of Disfrutar, a very special edition that sells for 175 euros and also has an English edition due to the international projection of this restaurant on Villarroel street in Barcelona, considered the fifth best in the world according to The World's 50 Best Restaurants ranking.
For Sarabia, the three former head chefs of El Bulli are "super-gifted chefs" who currently lead the global elite of gastronomy. "Castro, Xatruch and Casañas are authentic war machines of haute cuisine; what is in the book Disfrutar is devastating from a creative point of view. The methodology they have developed allows them to create one hundred creative dishes each year and delist another one hundred, and it is the first time they tell it in a book," explains the excited editor.
With a prologue by Ferran Adrià and abundant unpublished material, Disfrutar Vol.1 focuses on the techniques and recipes developed during the 2014–2017 period, and includes dishes such as carbonara macaroni, Chinese bread stuffed with caviar, and multi-spherical corn on the cob. The book is accompanied by a ring binder with more than one hundred recipes of their most famous dishes, accompanied by photographs taken by Francesc Guillamet, a close collaborator of the chefs. The idea is to launch a second book, still without a date, to recount the evolution of the restaurant, which has two Michelin stars, between 2018 and 2020.
The Barcelona publishing house will launch this 2022 a book about the restaurant Alkimia, by chef Jordi Vilà, and Mueble Bar, written by François Monti, considered one of the hundred most influential people in the bar world.
According to Sarabia, Abalon Books' idea is to publish between six and eight books a year. Each reprint of the current catalog is already a success, because "it is very difficult to sell more than a thousand books in Spain, and even more so in this segment." The editor states that he "is not closed to anything" and will continue to look for good gastronomy stories "in a broad sense," also giving space in his project to the world of wine, nutrition, or lifestyle. "The important thing is that we are now positioned in the circuit," concludes Sarabia, who is Academician of the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition.
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