Chef Jhonatan Maldonado renews Botànic's Palma menu with new tasting menu Pewma

Botànic, the restaurant at Palma's Can Bordoy hotel, has renewed its food offer under chef Jhonatan Maldonado. The clearest expression of the change is a tasting menu he debuted this summer, called Pewma: a very personal proposal that starts from his Chilean origins and evolves dish by dish through Mallorcan produce, according to Diario de Mallorca.

«Es una experiencia que surge del corazón, que este año he titulado Pewma, que en mapuche (una de las lenguas autóctonas del país) significa 'sueño', con el que uno el Pacífico y el Mediterráneo» ("It's an experience that comes from the heart, which this year I've titled Pewma, which in Mapuche, one of the country's native languages, means 'dream', and with which I join the Pacific and the Mediterranean"), Maldonado says. Ingredients from the land run through the menu, among them rosemary, Treurer olive oil, pine nuts and almonds, while meat and fish take a bigger role this cycle: fresh fish from Peix des Pas de s'Estanyol, poultry from Pere Obrador at Son Negre, and suckling pig and lamb from Ramaders Agrupats.

Diners can eat à la carte or choose the tasting menu, which opens with a poem written by Maldonado himself. His right-hand chef, Àlex Palmer, helped create an aperitivo that joins Andean tradition and Mallorca: a Chilean empanada of squid and botifarró. Other standout dishes are squid with fried bread and squid fumet, Mallorcan lamb, and a Chilean ceviche of fresh seafood with a double foam of spirulina and pisco sour. Kelly Darbyshire runs the dining room and Milen Toscov is the sommelier; the wine list leans on Miquel Gelabert and the Attis albariño made by winemaker Raúl Pérez.

Estefania Ferriol, the hotel's director, said the change followed chef Andreu Benítez's departure in January and goes beyond the menu. «Queremos que Botànic continúe siendo una experiencia de referencia, tanto en nuestro precioso jardín como en el interior; por ello, no solo renovamos la carta, sino la vajilla, la gran mayoría elaborada a mano por artesanos locales como Pell Ceràmica, Mirenchu Beascoechea i Sandra Renye» ("We want Botànic to keep being a benchmark experience, in our beautiful garden and indoors alike; that's why we've renewed not just the menu but the tableware too, most of it handmade by local artisans such as Pell Ceràmica, Mirenchu Beascoechea and Sandra Renye"), she said.

Maldonado was born in Chile in 1989. His family fled the country, then under Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, when he was three, settling in Israel before returning to Chile eight years later. He moved to Mallorca in 2012 and trained at the Escola d'Hoteleria de les Illes Balears. He has since cooked at Zaranda and Coque in Madrid, and spent eight years running the kitchen at Fontsanta in Campos.