Madrid, 1972. Diego Sandoval, winner of the 2016 Spanish National Gastronomy Award, runs the dining room and looks after every guest with great care and finesse. Self-taught and passionate about his work, he has 30 years of experience in the family business.
His career has made him a benchmark professional who offers impeccable service with a signature of its own, and he is considered one of the finest maîtres d' in the country.
Diego Sandoval / Insights
Coque's maître d' did not go to HIP 2026 to collect anything: he went to present. Together with Bayas Talent he launched the first edition of awards devoted exclusively to front-of-house, and he closed the gala with a line that sums up thirty years at the table: «the only revolution in the dining room has to be love».
Coque and Juan Alfaro Studio have hung fifteen pieces —Tàpies, Vasconcelos, Canogar, Huanca, Secundino Hernández, Kerwick— across the restaurant's 1,100 m², and set fifteen bites in front of them that translate them. The least discussed consequence belongs to the dining room: the journey stops being the way to the table and becomes half of the work.
Spanish National Gastronomy Award for Best Dining Room Director and, seven years later, the Montagud Award for Best Maître d'. The Royal Academy of Gastronomy summed up his work in three adjectives that remain the best definition of Coque's dining room: elegant, dynamic and warm.
