16/01/2020 Opened in 2012, this fine-dining restaurant in a small country house hotel has held a Michelin star since 2015. It offers views of Capdepera Castle from the terrace, and serves ‘cuisine from the land’.
On some 6,000 square metres of the estate’s land, chef/patron Andreu Genestra (business partner of the small hotel) grows organic vegetables, fruit, herbs, vines, olives, and Mallorcan ‘xeixa’ wheat (used in the delicious bread here). He keeps a pig and collects fresh eggs from his chickens – who also enjoy eating the grains from the local wheat. He also uses spices acquired during his winter travels.
The dining room is comfortable minimalist; the terrace, shaded and close to the estate’s original threshing floor. Maître d’ David Serrano leads the service. Andreu has a team of 14 chefs and eight waiters – who are all local.
Andreu has cooked privately for several members of European royalty, and his beautifully presented cuisine reveals why. There is no separate à la carte menu, but three monthly-changing tasting menus – ‘Cuina de la Terra’, ‘Sensations’ (which certainly lived up to its name when we tried it), and the Tasting Menu Andreu Genestra. Dishes from the first two tasting menus can be ordered individually if you prefer fewer courses.
We started our lunch with a glass of Vermuda – the vermouth made by the maître d’ David during the winter. They offer red and white versions: “We wanted it to say ‘Mallorca’,” Andreu told us. The red contains the same spices used in ‘arroz brut’. The restaurant offers more than 20 other vermouths as well and the wine list includes Andreu Genestra wines. G&T fans should try Ginestra – the gin made to Andreu and David’s recipe by Tunel.
We had the ‘Sensations’ tasting menu, which began with our waitress breaking the home-made warm ‘xeixa’ bread with white-gloved hands at the table and placing it on a board of hot stones. It was served with a cuttlefish pica-pica and amuse bouches.
Every dish was exquisitely presented and Andreu himself did some of the preparation at our table, mixing a fat-free mayonnaise-like sauce based on burnt banana (grown in his own garden!) in a mortar and pestle, which we had with razor clams. Delicious.
Another stand-out dish was lamb from high-quality producer Can Company, served in two traditional styles and parts. Firstly a lamb fideua, traditionally served at harvest time, with lamb croquettes; the second part contained a terrine of leg of lamb with green sauce, grilled rib with fresh herbs, and lamb shoulder with cooked beetroot – not as large a meat-fest as it may sound!
Our tasting menu also included a cheese course, including an ecological cheese from Sa Teulera (near Manacor), a Manchego that had been steeped in Pedro Ximenez for five months, and a blue buffalo-milk cheese.
In 2016 the restaurant understandably attracted discerning guests from the new 5-star Park Hyatt Mallorca in nearby Canyamel. With these additional diners and guests of Hotel Predí Son Jaumell wanting to eat here, we recommend reserving your table as early as possible.
We love… Genestra’s passion for home-grown produce.
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