A REFERENCE OF THE PLANT FORWARD CUISINE

Andrés Benítez (Palma de Mallorca, 1984) has been, since 2018, the chef of the Botànic restaurant in Palma de Mallorca, one of the international benchmarks for Plant Forward cuisine. With more than 20 years of experience in Michelin-starred establishments such as Nerua (Bilbao), Sergi Arola Gastro (Madrid) and Bou (Mallorca), among others, Benítez came to the Plant Forward kitchen almost by chance.

Although he had always liked working with vegetables and enhancing their flavor using different cooking techniques, the birth of hisdaughter made himeven more aware of the importance of eating well to maintain a healthy life.

The opening of Botànic, a restaurant based in its beginnings on healthy cuisine, made from local products and kilometer 0, allowed him to delve into the plant world, realizing its enormous potential, and how unfair it was to relegate vegetables and vegetables to a perpetual secondary role.

And from there came the seed to create the revolutionary menu of the new Botànic, the first Plant Forward restaurant in Mallorca, in which green takes center stage in all the dishes, but it does so in a fun, sexy way and letting yourself be accompanied, in a from time to time, for high-quality meat and fish, which delightedly assume the role of garnish.

Inspired by the legend of Miquel Salas, a Mallorcan sailor whose transoceanic voyages allowed his blind son to discover the world through the smells and flavors of the spices and products he found at each port of call, Benítez uses all kinds of condiments from overseas, and aromatic herbs, to dress up vegetables that were once relegated to ostracism, getting even the detractors of veganism to enjoy the chic dance to which he invites them.

To the sound of a rhythmic and surprising melody, the ingredients are mixed with acid and bitter flavors, fusing textures, incorporating exotic products from other lands, and a touch of spiciness, and superimposing all those magical counterpoints on vegetables prepared to the point.

The result is a masterful ode to green, which finally manages to elevate green to the Olympus of international gastronomy, positioning Plant Forward cuisine as the undisputed future, not only of the culinary world, but of a captivating healthy lifestyle, sexy and tremendously funny.