When, at the age of 10, Irene Rodríguez saw a teppanyakishe told her father that she wanted to be a cook teppanyaki (teppan means “iron plate”, e yaki“roasted” or “grilled”). His father was Luis Rodríguez, the first Spanish waiter at Yamadori, along with Tokyo Sushi, doyen of Japanese restaurants in Barcelona, opened in 1979. When Luis decided to found Bi.En in Terrassa in 2010, he used his contacts to form his team, including Irene, who had trained with a Japanese chef at the Yashima restaurant.
In 2022, Ivan Galiot took charge of the project together with Irene. They were looking for a different concept. “The idea was to make a tavern, a izakayaa place to eat tapas or small plates and sample foods beyond thesushi: robotayaki, gyozatempura… Look for even the lesser-known dishes of Japanese cuisine and work with local products to treat them as they would be treated in Japan.” The key to their cuisine is the honesty with which they work the product (demonstrated by the sea espardeñas nigiri robotayaki), the mixture (as in the red tuna nigiri with a thin layer of bacon) and cooking everything from scratch, as for the gyoza done by yourself.
