Diego Sandoval News · Dining room
Diego Sandoval creates the first HIP Awards «La Sala, Otra Mirada»
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, a field that until now almost never had a gala of its own. He closed the event with a line that sums up thirty years at the table: «the only revolution in the dining room has to be love».
Until 2026, front-of-house was recognised only in passing: a stray category within galas designed for the kitchen. The HIP Awards «La Sala, Otra Mirada», launched at HIP — Horeca Professional Expo 2026, are the first to look only there. And Coque does not receive them: in their first edition they are promoted by Juan Diego Sandoval, the house's maître d', and the team at Bayas Talent.
An award that did not exist
The tenth edition of HIP brought more than 60,000 industry professionals together at IFEMA Madrid, from 16 to 18 February 2026, under the slogan «Next Level Unlocked». Within that scale, the «La Sala, Otra Mirada» gala took up the second day with a deliberately narrow approach: no cooking, no produce. Only what happens from the moment the guest walks through the door.
The nuance matters, because it changes who the subject is. An award for a restaurant is almost always collected by the chef. An award for staging or uniforms is collected by the person who designed it and who sustains it night after night. That is the «other view» of the title.
The «amelier» concept, seven years earlier
The awards did not come out of nowhere. Bayas Talent, the team that organises them with Sandoval, coined the term amelier seven years earlier to name a professional the vocabulary of the trade had no word for: the front-of-house professional who does not simply serve the table but leads the guest's entire experience —the pace, the story, the tone, the farewell—. The category that bears that name rewards young talent, and it is the reason for everything else.
«The only revolution in the dining room has to be love, which is what gets us up every day».
The first winners
The first edition gave five awards, each on a different part of the craft:
- Best Staging — Oba.
- Most Innovative Concept — Bakea.
- Best Uniforms — DiverXO.
- Content Creator — Marta Iglesias.
- Amelier Award, for young front-of-house talent — Adrián Abella, Marina Ruiz and Aldo Rial.
Read as a whole, the list says something about the criteria: there is not a single category for «best maître d'». What is rewarded is crafts, decisions and people starting out, not established hierarchies.
Why Coque's maître d' is behind it
Sandoval has spent more than thirty years in the family business and runs a dining room that the Royal Academy of Gastronomy described as «elegant, dynamic and warm» when it gave him the Spanish National Gastronomy Award for Best Dining Room Director. He is also one of the three brothers who completed Coque's full set of National Awards: kitchen, dining room and wine cellar.
From that position, promoting an award for others has a specific meaning. The problem facing front-of-house is not talent, it is succession: young professionals do not enter a profession that nobody names. An award does not solve that, but it puts a name, a date and a photo where before there was none.
Frequently asked questions
- What are the HIP Awards «La Sala, Otra Mirada»?
- Awards devoted exclusively to front-of-house, launched at the tenth edition of HIP — Horeca Professional Expo, from 16 to 18 February 2026 at IFEMA Madrid. They recognise staging, concept, uniforms, promotion of the craft and young talent.
- What is Diego Sandoval's role in them?
- He promotes and organises them together with Bayas Talent. He did not attend as a guest: he is one of their promoters, and he closed the gala of the first edition.
- Who won the first edition?
- Oba (Staging), Bakea (Most Innovative Concept), DiverXO (Uniforms), Marta Iglesias (Content Creator) and, for the Amelier Award, Adrián Abella, Marina Ruiz and Aldo Rial.
- What is an «amelier»?
- A term coined by Bayas Talent seven years before these awards for the front-of-house professional who leads the guest's entire experience, beyond table service.
Sources
- I Premios HIP: La Sala, Otra Mirada reivindican el talento joven en el servicio de restauración, Excelencias Gourmet (in Spanish).
- Premios HIP: La Sala, Otra Mirada, HIP — Horeca Professional Expo (in Spanish).
- Juan Diego Sandoval, speaker profile, HIP — Horeca Professional Expo.
- Juan Diego Sandoval, Premio Nacional de Gastronomía 2016 al Mejor Director de Sala (in Spanish).
More about the team: Diego Sandoval, maître d' · Mario Sandoval, chef · Rafael Sandoval, sommelier · The experience, step by step
