Welcome to The Now and Here
GET THE TASTE
Just 15 minutes from Palma and surrounded by olive, almond and orange trees, La Farm brings you extraordinary bohemian Barefoot Luxury experience.
La Farm is not a location. It’s an experience. The relaxed, life-celebrating version of the sustainable KM Zero dining philosophy comes with no pretentiousness, but with pure delight in unadulterated flavours and an abundance of local and seasonal ingredients. All of these are combined in summer season with relaxed live DJ vibes during dinner hours.
The culinary journey through Ahora y Aqui, with its celebration of flavours, is a unique tribute to the unique history of the Balearic Islands, with a variety of colourful and flavourful oriental and African influences. It is a celebration of the Balearics and the world at the same time. It’s inspired by everything and everywhere, but it’s not bound to anything except respect for the elements. Our menu reflects, admires, and communicates this essence and purity of nature.
Combining the highest quality and freshness of ingredients with the magic of spices, the menu will take you on a unique journey for the senses.
And while we present a sophisticated dining experience, we remain committed to the ‘barefoot’ in barefoot luxury. La Farm isn’t just a restaurant. It’s a moment and a feeling to share with friends. A breath of life. A bazaar of ideas, flavours and multi-sensory experiences that combine taste, smell, sight and sound. You could call it barefoot luxury fun dining. We call it the Here and Now.
THE Manifesto
To bring it to life, we are committing to the following Manifesto and are inviting others on the Balearic Islands to join us as well. We aim to Pave the road to a celebration of life and endless summer nights in a conscious and sustainable way. We can’t save the world and how tourism is evolving on our own, but we can do what is within our reach.
§1: Local talent
In the end, every tourism and hospitality business is either originally from the island or is just a guest. The beauty of travel overall should be to understand the culture, heritage, and people of the places travelers and guests visit.
This is why we are committed to giving local people and talent a chance. We will always prefer a local person when hiring. Even if experience levels of young talents coming from or living on the island might require more people development compared to international candidates coming from other countries.
§2: Local language
§3: Letting local businesses and communities participate in growth and wealth
We say NO to any form of mass tourism that shuttles people from the airport to a remote destination without any chance for local businesses to participate in the spend ing and resulting wealth on the island. Tourism that brings people from all over the world as guests to the island needs to be nestled into and go hand in hand with the local culture, nature, and industry.
For the daily operations, we therefore limit our list of suppliers to local businesses. We will also mainly feature and recommend local or family run businesses to our guests – be it a small handcraft shop or a vineyard on the island. We are committed to promote these unique shops and places that only exist on the island.
§4: Revitalising the Balearic Culinary Heritage
The Balearics have always been a region being rich in the variety in influences. Exotic spices from India and the Orient conquered the entire Mediterranean region early on. The Balearics have partly even belonged longer to Africa than to the European mainland. Unfortunately, much has since been forgotten. Our culinary concept brings this wealth of flavours back to the island and to our tables.
Dishes without heritage, reference, or connection to the island will never make it on our menu. We strongly believe that the majority of places on the island should represent the above and not culture or food that has no connection to the island at all.
§5: KM Zero is our mantra
§6: Giving back
The growth in tourism spend on the island represents a significantly growing wealth as well. Parts of this wealth will have to go back to local communities, especially to underprivileged groups that are not able to participate at all in it.
We are committed to actively support dedicated local organization with donations money we are generating from tourism on the island – being very precise amounts and the way how those will get back to local communities.
We will also actively promote these organizations to the guests that we are hosting in our venue.
§7: Manifest participation
AH
ORA
Y
AQUI
Vivek Singh is not only an award-winning chef, author of a number of cookery books and initiator founder of London’s renowned Cinnamon Club, he is also a co-farmer at La Farm. And out of conviction. The idea of a barefoot luxury restaurant on the sunny island of Mallorca inspired him right from the start. A stroke of luck, as he contributes his invaluable knowledge of flavours and spices to La Farm.
Insights from a real mastermind
Interview with Vivek Singh
WHAT’S THE SECRET OF SPICES?
The secret of spices lies in their ability to elevate senses like little else. Through taste, smell, texture (touch) and colour, spices create magic. Whether used on their own or in combination with other spices, they create layer upon layer of flavours, lifting the simplest of ingredients to dizzying heights of enjoyment.
Akin to creating music in an orchestra, spices are the performers in a kitchen, helping, supporting, responding at the command of the conductor. Contrary to popular belief, they are always there to support, to improve, to enhance any ingredient, never to overpower or take over.
Whilst the debate goes on about whether we have 5 senses, or 7, or indeed 22, spices go about their role in enhancing ingredients, their lives, as well as contributing to our health via their medicinal and preservative qualities.
EARTH, WIND, FIRE, AND WATER. SHOULD FLAVOUR NOT BE THE FIFTH ELEMENT?
Earth, air, fire, water, and space.The debate continues whether flavour should be an element too, or should flavour and time be the 5th and 6th elements.
Well, it’s clear to us that cooking isn’t possible in the absence of any of these elements, so we need all of them. But the question is why cook at all? And if the answer is to create or recreate an ‘experience’ then both flavour and time become just as relevant.
Cooking and food have the ability to transport people to a place and time, both in the past or in the future. Of the millions of species on our planet, no others ever cook their food, we are the only species to do so. Even more, we are the only species that cooks for others. The power of this connection to the elements, the act of giving to others, the power to create memories of a time and place, the ability to touch the hearts and minds of others through an act (cooking), is what makes these experiences unique.
La Farm will celebrate this connection among the different elements and combine them to create experiences which will be truly memorable. Whether it’s simple vegetables grown locally and roasted on the fire via freshly baked flat breads using local artisanal flour to freshe seafood being treated with the respect it deserves, or even truly interested guests learning to cook at La Farm during their stay, each of these acts will be a truly authentic experience that will connect the elements and elevate the senses.
WHAT DINING TRENDS DO YOU SEE RIGHT NOW?
– Barefoot luxury. Doing less to top quality ingredients. No ostentatious display of OTT wealth
– Conscious, connected, planet-friendly offerings
– Quality local, seasonal produce cooked purely and with respect
– Each meal an occasion, a celebration
– Relaxed, sharing style, fun dining (not fussy fine dining) interactive theatrical feasts
– Increased focus on health, wellbeing, and environmental awareness
– A global approach to flavours, drawing inspiration from everywhere, a bazaar of ideas, a buffet of flavours, borrowing, lending, exchanging, trading yet at the same time celebrating our local heritage and produce
– A range of multi-sensory experiences that combines sound, sight, smell, theatre, and taste
WHY IS LA FARM A PERFECT THEATRE STAGE FOR THE CELEBRATION OF FLAVOURS?
The Balearics have their own unique history of oriental and African influences over the millennia. Layer that with the more recent European interaction. Combine that with the Mediterranean climate and environment. Season liberally with influences we all experience each day in today’s global world. Marinate each of these in the unique combination of elements at La Farm and we have pretty much a perfect recipe for a celebration of flavours.
This unique celebration is both outward facing and inward looking at the same time. It’s both a celebration of the Balearics as well as the world at the same time. It’s inspired by everything and everywhere, yet not tied to anything except its respect for the elements. The La Farm experience is both from nowhere and from everywhere. It is the NOW & HERE of a connected, mindful experience.
KM ZERO IS OUR GOAL
The shorter the journey, the better. Our goal is KM Zero. If we can’t get it locally or from a local farmer, we’ll leave it out and use a local alternative.
In Mallorca, the table is laid more than generously – even to create ambitious and fine-dining experiences without having to turn outside for ingredients and supply.
Almost everything grows here. Already around the 10th century, Arab sailors brought oranges to the island and probably tomatoes as well. And to this day, so much more has been added that we will never run out of ingredients.
Besides vegetables and fruits, our fish, as example, is caught right off the coast by fishermen during authorised fishing times and only outside protected areas. And if the fishermen return to port in the morning with little or no fish, there will be something else on our menu.
We also have rooms on our menu
We’ll let you in on a secret. La Farm also has 10 rooms and an hideaway villa available for guests. So if you don’t feel like getting back in the car or taxi after dinner, and would rather end the evening relaxing in one of our pool or Orange Tree lounges, you can simply book one of these rooms in addition to your dining experience.
