Written by Matthew Dursum
A hefty offshore gust blows down from the surrounding Monterey Pines, bringing the scent of decomposing bull kelp and gray barnacles into the lineup of surfers. The water is cold and a shade of blue that only exists in the South Pacific.
Swells approach, forming a line of corduroys that enter the lineup. A wave hits the volcanic rocks standing at the tip of the point and wraps into the sandbar. Gabriel Beilinson paddles, stands, and slides down the face, setting up his bottom turn and staring down the line.
Several snaps and tube rides later, he makes the short drive from the shore to his property in the region of Ñuble, Chile. There are more cows, horses, and sea lions than people in his community, and he’s waiting patiently behind a horse, exercising its right-of-way on the road in front of him.
Beilinson pulls into his driveway. It’s Friday, and he has an important event to cater for. During the week he’s a surfer, musician, and a yoga instructor, but now he puts on a different hat, one of a chef. After taking his daughter to school, he packs his baskets and equipment, jumps in his truck, and heads to the forest.
The soggy soil near the Reserva Nacional Los Queules is one of a few forests in the region that holds edible treasures. This protected patch of Valdivian temperate rainforest is locally known as the ‘Valdivian Jungle.’ Beilinson scours the forest floor here and in other patches of native woodlands often, looking for fallen logs, stumps, and irregular colors in the brush that signal wild mushrooms. On this day, he scores. Wild loyo mushrooms peek out from the decomposing leaves. Three mushrooms are swiftly cut and placed in his basket.
In this small patch of forest are dense evergreen laurels, ferns, pines, and the brightly colored bell-shaped copihue—Chile’s national flower. Most sections of the forest have remained as they have been for millennia.
Taste the simple and combine with the sophisticated.
With a basket containing a few loyo and changle mushrooms, Beilinson drives to the coast for his second round of foraging. He steps onto the black sand, passing anglers pulling their boats on shore from the foggy coastal waters.
The sea near his home is full of seasonal delicacies. Wild spinach, sea lettuce, ice plants known as luche, and the umami-rich Chilean kelp cochayuyo. As a chef, Beilinson always includes foraged food in his dishes. He prioritizes cooking with what’s in season.
After his hunt for wild ingredients, Beilinson’s kitchen counter is overflowing with his findings. His kitchen is spotted with rich local cheeses, jars of fermented vegetables and a special 18-year-old balsamic vinegar. “Taste the simple and combine with the sophisticated,” is something that Beilinson lives by. “The experience of taking something that is wild and simple and has a special taste and mixing it with a sophisticated cheese or vinegar is something that I love.”
But surfing, for Beilinson, is not on the back burner. He is right back at the beach that evening. His obsession with surfing started in Punta del Este, Uruguay, when he was nine years old after his dad gifted him a surfboard. “I remember getting in the ocean, just smelling the foam, feeling the texture of the board in my hands, and just going out.” The summer waves of the Atlantic were his perfect training grounds. “The feeling was like, wow, I’m in for a ride now. From that day, surfing got in my blood.”
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the travel bug and surf bug bit Beilinson at the same time. He knew he wanted to see the world and the waves outside of Argentina and Uruguay. As chronicled in his book, Pasajero Improvisado: Surf, Aventuras y Sueños (Improvised Passenger: Surf, Adventures, and Dreams), Beilinson spent over a decade, traveling, surfing, and learning about the food and cooking techniques that would later forge his career as a chef.
He traveled to Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, and Peru, before returning to Buenos Aires, Argentina to attend culinary school. “I would get on the train, without knowing where I would stay. I would always just find someone who would open his door, I would stay at his house, maybe surf epic waves for that weekend, go back to the city, arrive early in the morning and go straight back to school after surfing all weekend.”
But his surf saga didn’t end there. Beilinson continued his travels to Australia, Indonesia, and to the Philippines, keeping his usual pattern of arriving, finding a job, and staying for a while to surf and learn about the culture. “I would be working, saving money, and trying to survive to have the best surf I could.”
Eventually, Beilinson returned to South America and became a yoga instructor, fell in love, and started a family in Chile. When he and his partner arrived in the region of Ñuble, they decided that was it. “We love the place, we love the waves, beaches, countryside, and sea. You have the mountains, little beaches hiding around, the culture of the farmers. I love all of that.”
Like other small surf towns around the world, Beilinson’s community is changing. New homes and developments are being built up and down the coast. In rural Ñuble, artisans like Beilinson work in the shadow of job-creating yet environmentally harmful industries like timber, fishing, and mining.
Ñuble’s coast was once home to wet Valdivian temperate rainforests, full of moist air and diverse plant and animal life. In the last few decades, Monterey pine and eucalyptus plantations have replaced it, led by a forestry industry that accounts for over 6% of Chile’s exports and over 2% of its GDP. “All these places have become dryer, way dryer,” says Beilinson. In 2023, wildfires burned around 69,478 hectares of forest in Ñuble, leaving thousands injured and homeless. “When I go walking through the real forests, I can imagine how it was in the past, with pumas and all these animals that you can’t see anymore.”
As if that weren’t bad enough, another battle rages on the coast. Fishing and other actions by humans have degraded up to 66% of the marine environment globally. Chile, with one of the most biodiverse coastal regions on the planet, is not excluded. Large-scale commercial fishing trawlers often drag nets indiscriminately close to shore, both harming the ecosystem and the livelihood of artisanal fishers. “I don’t eat salmon. I don’t buy salmon. And I don’t sell salmon. Because the industry here sucks,” says Beilinson.
Challenges to illegal fishing and logging have led to violence. Indigenous communities, environmentalists, and artisanal fishermen have been met with heavy-handed responses from industrial trawlers, illegal fishing groups, and illegal loggers for speaking out.
I don’t eat salmon, I don’t buy salmon, And I don’t sell salmon. Because the industry here sucks.
Still, there is progress in Chile. In 2020, the Chilean government took a stand against unregulated overfishing and it became one of a few countries to publicly release its vessel tracking data and designated over 40% of its waters as marine protected areas in 2019. This comes after Chilean Big Wave surfer Ramón Navarro, and a coalition including Save The Waves and Fundación Punta de Lobos, bought and secured the land surrounding the famous Chilean surf spot Punta de Lobos as a World Surfing Reserve.
Navarro is the son of a local artisanal fisherman and, as he was a budding professional surfer, watched as the livelihoods of small-scale anglers like his father were erased by large-scale commercial fishing operations. “I really appreciate [Ramon Navarro’s] work, all the things he does for the community. The way he transformed himself was also an example and inspiration,” says Beilinson.
Successes from celebrity environmentalists like Navarro and recent changes in attitudes from the government are slowly making an impact in Chile. Yet, as Beilinson points out, the biggest impacts come from every member of society changing their way of living. “With the wood, I still consume some wood, so I’m part of this shit. I cannot point my finger at a company, while I don’t find a better solution.”
Keeping their businesses locally based and sourced in Ñuble, people like Beilinson hope to give people an alternative business model that will not only provide jobs but also protect their beautiful yet vulnerable coastal community.
“My project is here in my house. It’s a fusion of many things,” says Beilinson. His property is now home to cooking experiences, yoga classes, and a space that features local art, live music, and artisanal products. Of course, local food and wine, such as his favorite bottles from A Los Viñateros Bravos, a celebrated local organic wine made by winemaker Leonardo Erazo, are included.
When all is said and done, Beilinson lives by what he believes in. His multifaceted home sits in harmony with the ocean. “My main goal is to make people more conscious about food. Supporting the people who are doing good, farming in an organic way, taking care of the cycles of the sea; with the fish, with the seaweed, respecting the cycles of mushrooms, and everything else.”