“Les Cols Restaurant is a place where we aim to offer happiness to our guests through cuisine based on the landscape that surrounds us and seasonality.”

Don’t let her youth and appearance fool you: Martina Puigvert Puigdevall, chef of Les Cols restaurant, is one of the most influential young chefs, a recognition she earned when she received the “Young Chef of the Michelin Guide” award. In addition, the family restaurant where she works as a chef has 2 Michelin stars and a green star.

To learn about her contribution to the world of gastronomy, we travelled to La Garrotxa, a unique volcanic area of Catalonia (Spain) that defines her culinary offerings. You see, her cuisine is closely linked to the land.

At Les Cols, they are committed to “local food”, always cooking local products, those offered by their own orchard and chicken coop, and also by the producers and artisans in the area.

It is precisely the environment and territory of La Garrotxa that makes possible a cuisine based on seasonality, a cuisine that they themselves define as: “Seasonal, sustainable and authentic cuisine, restrained but essential; austere and humble, but intuitive and intimate.”

“Create, share and enjoy” is how the chef defines her proposition to collaborate with Torres Brandy.”

In this third edition, Martina Puigvert creates a pairing menu that invites us to travel around La Garrotxa, where her restaurant is located. We start off this culinary journey with the onion royale, a dish made with an onion grown in the volcanic soil of La Garrotxa, which gives it a very peculiar sweet flavour that pairs perfectly with one of the most award-winning brandies in the world: Torres 20. To savour the 6 appetisers, we serve them with the Torres 20 aperitif cocktail.

We continue the journey through this volcanic landscape highlighting and delighting in one of the main dishes: duck with pears, a duck raised by them and cooked like an upside-down cake, served with a Torres 20 Ginger Beer cocktail.

And as a highlight, a flower-shaped dessert based on the traditional “mel y mató” (honey and cottage cheese from the area), which pairs perfectly with a timeless cocktail such as Torres 20 Old Fashioned.

Martina had a clear plan: her pairing proposal was going to showcase not only sustainable cuisine and local products, but also the versatility of the Torres 20 brandy used to make the various cocktails that accompany each dish. And to honour her pairing proposal with Torres Brandy, you can enjoy the Onion Royale and the “Mel i mató” dessert paired with Torres 20 only during the month of July on the tasting menu of Les Cols restaurant. Enjoy your meal!

STARTERS:

• Leaves, herbs and flowers, three-coloured olives.
• Beans from Santa Pau (PDO), pork knuckles, turnips, chilli oil.
• Onion Royale, roscón de Olot (ring-shaped bread with anise), breadcrumbs, licorice.
• Crayfish salad, eel, frog legs.
• Millefeuille of river trout and acorn ham, consommé.
• Fresh eggs, raw and cooked St. George’s mushroom, white asparagus.

COCKTAIL: Torres 20 Aperitif

MAINS:

• Lamb shoulder and sweetbreads, sheep’s milk, wool, rosemary, thyme.
• Loin, brandade and cod tripe, spinach, squash blossom.
• Duck magret with pears, upside-down tart, pear Chantilly, acorn with contrasting jams made by us.

COCKTAIL: Torres 20 & Ginger Beer

DESSERT:

• Cherries, cherry pits, elderberry, carob.
• Flower honey and cottage cheese, walnuts, ratafia.
• Chocolate bar, a taste of the restaurant’s ambiance.

COCKTAIL: Torres 20 Old Fashioned

Collaboration between Torres 20 and Martina Puigvert Puigdevall at Les Cols restaurant in La Garrotxa, Spain.