Pez Limón swims against the current

Itziar Lecea/Ciutadella – Elena Angosto and Héctor Gallego are two partners, in business and in life, who set up, this year will be four years old, a place on Carrer Sant Joan de Ciutadella called Pez Limón. A small restaurant with an informal atmosphere, until you taste the first course and realize that you are in one of the restaurants with the highest level of cuisine on the island. In this issue of Foodies we get to know them more closely.

GOING AROUND UNTIL YOU REACH MENORCA

N'Héctor trained in London, where he worked at Gaucho Tower Bridge, L'autre Pied, which has a Michelin star, and Roberto Costa's Maccelaio. Since the age of seventeen, he has worked in kitchens in Spain, Andorra and England. N'Elena did a FP in cooking and worked many seasons in Ibiza, until she was able to access Martín Berasategui's kitchen, where she spent three winters. He has also worked at the Azurmendi restaurant in Bilbao -three Michelin stars- and Eneko -one Michelin star-, where he was head of events. Until they jointly decided to come to Menorca.

"Actually, we arrived in Menorca in 2019 with the intention of spending a season on the island and then traveling during the winter, me working in S'Amarador and Héctor in the Balearics," says Laura. "Finally, that winter we stayed and the pandemic caught us. In the summer of 2020 we were able to work, but then we decided to set up our own restaurant, which is an idea that had been in our heads for a long time, but which we had never put into practice.”

The choice of location marked the initial trajectory of Pez Limón. "We came a lot as customers when this place was Sa taverna de Sant Joan, to smoke canes and hang out. I remember that the first time we entered, I told n’Héctor that it would be a very good place to set up something, with the luck that the previous owner wanted to make a transfer and we were able to set up Pez Limón.”

THE CONTRAST

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N'Elena assures that her idea, when they decided to start, was much more modest. "We didn't want a restaurant, at first, but a simple tapas bar that we could run between the two of us and a person to help us in the room. But when we entered the premises, we saw that it could actually give much more. The truth is that the restaurant made its way on its own. We put all our love into it from the kitchen and we have been very lucky to have a very good team also in the dining room, which has helped a lot. Having eyes outside the kitchen is a great advantage.”

Eyes and ears that were able to set the course for a menu that started "very short, with nine or ten dishes, and that we changed every week. But when summer came we realized that it was unviable. Thus, in the summer of 2022 we already established the fixed menu. During the winter we can play a lot more with outsiders, but we have a more stable base."

THE NAME

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If one thing stands out about Pez Limón without having tasted anything, it's its image. A lemon shaped and colored fish with a smile and a childlike touch. "We didn't want anything that was too formal, and we came up with the idea of looking at the fish that go around Menorca. Cirviola came up, but as a name we didn't like it too much. However, investigating we saw that it was a fish with many names, including lemon fish, and so it ended up being Pez Limón. What we were looking for, both with the name and the image, was to make a contrast between the quality that comes from the kitchen and the informality of the place and also of the service, because we didn't want to be a very formal, protocol restaurant. We like the one-to-one treatment, giving the client confidence to feel comfortable", says Elena.

The details, in this case, have had a lot to do. From the music, which is a little louder than is usually the case in other restaurants of this level, to the cutlery and dishes, which remind us of those we can find in grandma's attic.

EVOLUTION OF THE MENU

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"The set menu we have now is a reflection of dishes from when we started until now. For example, croquettes are a dish that has been around since the beginning, but we have been perfecting them. The salad has also always been there, although it has seen an evolution. And the same has happened to us with the bravas. Our goal is to make continuous improvement, not to get bored", says Elena, who, however, confesses that summer is a bad time to bring out new products despite having more customers. "During the winter is when we experiment, because we have more time. The off-menu dishes that are popular during the winter are usually the ones that make the cut and end up on the menu, as was the case with the cochinita pibil brioche, although it took us a while because it is a dish that involves a lot of preparation, especially in summer."

What does not change, or at least they try to make it so, is that the basis of Pez Limón's cuisine is Menorcan produce, although they also confess that "during the summer it is much more complicated. We are very aware of the circular economy, and we do what we can in this aspect. But we also know that during the month of August we cannot survive all the restaurants that use local products based on what the island produces. There are some exceptions, such as aubergines, which are always from Menorca because they are cooked differently, Menorcan red meat, or belted pork. And we also try to make sure that the fish is all caught here.”

Desserts are another section of the Pez Limón menu that bears the Menorcan stamp with product. And even with names. "Apart from the cheese cake, which we make with Caló Blau, we also have some desserts that we have whipped up like the Menorquí, which is made with brossat made in Ciutadella, honey ice cream from Can Padet, and liver from Mel i Untis, to which we add years of Sa Cooperative.”

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A Menorcanity that they extend to their wine list, where you can see that they work with wineries such as Binitord, Binifadet or Alba, a new addition to the Menorcan wines that are made in Macarella and that began marketing their wine last summer rosé and which this year adds two new wines, the white, made with Malvasia, and the red with Monastrell. We will also find the liqueurs made in Menorca, which will serve to round off the table.