As director of operations for Proximo restaurants, which comprises Cafe Atlantico, Jaleo, Zaytinya and Oyamel, Antoni Yelamos has plenty of work to do. But between 11-hour workdays at six demanding restaurants, he still manages to find some balance in life — and occasionally has the chance to return to his old job as a ski instructor.
I caught up with him to talk about life beyond work, appropriately enough, while he was vacationing at Wrightsville Beach, N.C., with his family for the week. “I love being here,” he said. “It’s so low-key and low-stress. For restaurant people, this type of vacation truly makes a big difference.”
Yelamos, who was born in Barcelona, developed a passion for skiing in his 20s when he worked as a ski instructor in Andorra, the small, mountainous principality that sits tucked between France and Spain. A few years ago, he decided to revisit his former profession. “I said to myself I have to do something with this before I get too old. And I became a certified ski instructor for the American Association of Professional Ski Instructors.”
He’s able to teach every once in a while in Pennsylvania at Liberty Mountain. And “I’ve skied all over Europe. The Alps and the Pyrenees are just incredible.” He’s also done time on the slopes in Whistler, British Columbia; Mount Bachelor and Mount Hood in Oregon; and Mammoth Lake in California.
To stay in shape on a daily basis, an athletic Yelamos wakes up at 6 a.m. three or four times a week to bike or roller ski — an activity akin to cross-country skiing but on pavement.
He also makes time for his wife and two children, Charlotte, who is 10, and Alex, who is 5. Lucky for a restaurant professional, he said the kids are already adventurous eaters. “They’ll try anything and everything. That doesn’t mean they’ll like it,” he said. “But they will certainly try everything.”
The family takes a yearly trip to Yelamos’s home in Spain and recently spent a week in San Francisco and the surrounding wine country.
But if it sounds like the Spaniard with boyish good looks has achieved that elusive balance between work and play, it wasn’t always that way. Just a few years ago, he said he had a life-changing realization that his job, which he has held for about eight years now, had become too important. “I was working like crazy, and work was everything. The kids were growing up and I didn’t even realize it,” he said. ”I decided to slow down a little bit on the work side, and it pays off so much. Once you realize you can actually do it, it’s amazing.”
He said that staying focused is the key to maintaining balance. “Even now, knowing much better, for a couple weeks I’ll start working more and more, and the next thing you know it’s like, hey, wait a minute. Let me backtrack a little bit and go back to where I think it should be. It’s always a little bit of a check and balance.”
Yelamos said he tries to remind himself that he has to stop somewhere. “There is always another day.”
Even while enjoying time at the beach with his family, he lamented that his balance “skates on very thin ice. You always wish you could do more,” he said.
But despite a demanding restaurant industry job, Yelamos keeps pursuing his love of sports. In addition to doing a little boating, fishing and kayaking while in North Carolina in June, Yelamos said he was looking forward to trying out para-surfing, where you’re pulled along the waves on a surfboard by a parachute. But not without lessons first. “As a ski instructor, I know the importance of learning it right from the beginning,” he said, adding with a laugh, “Hopefully I won’t break my neck.”
