Miceli

Miceli stands in Selva, a small village at the foot of the Serra de Tramuntana, a few steps from the square with its solid village church. The cooking happens in a 19th-century Mallorcan village house that belongs to the family and in which the chef, Marga Coll, grew up. The name comes from botany, and the house prints the definition itself: mycelium, mushroom roots formed by multiple ramifications which absorb the nutrients from land. The way Miceli describes itself is just as unfussy: a space meant to transmit and share the love and respect it feels for cooking. Simple, well done, born from products bought daily in the market. A small family restaurant — the house claims nothing more than that. What you do not get here is a fixed menu. The menu is written every day at sunrise; what gets cooked depends on the season and on whatever looked most appetising in the Inca market that same morning. The dishes are explained at the table, usually by Marga Coll herself, who moves from table to table as she does it. Her husband, Javier Arés, runs the dining room and the wines, while Jose Lozano takes care of the desserts. What comes out of the Miceli kitchen Mallorcan stews and produce from the huerta are the base, and the Inca market is Marga Coll's supplier of reference. The Michelin guide calls Miceli a family-run restaurant with lots of personality and its cooking an updated take on traditional Mallorcan cuisine, changing daily in line with market availability. Which dishes that means on any given day is not something anyone can promise. Plates that have come out of this kitchen include a green pea soup with goat cheese foam, stuffed aubergines, fresh hake, mussels in three sauces, suckling pig in apricot jus and peaches poached in wine — examples, not a menu. Vegetarians and guests with particular dietary requirements are catered for. Anyone who wants to hand themselves over to the kitchen entirely takes one of the two tasting menus: Menú Degustación or Menú Miceli. Beyond those you can order individually, grouped into aperitif, starters, mains and desserts. A Bib Gourmand, not a star Miceli holds a Bib Gourmand from the Michelin guide — not a star. It has never held one either, even if the consensus on the island is that Marga Coll would be very much deserving of one; that is an opinion, not an award. On Mallorca that distinction is a rare one. The Guía Repsol lists Miceli as a recommended restaurant, without a Sol. Marga Coll, the chef behind Miceli Marga Coll has cooked in Mallorcan restaurants including Ca'n Quet and Ca's Puers, received a grant from the hospitality school of the Balearic university to digitise, update and put into practice Mallorcan recipes, and later took over the catering department of amadip.esment with its restaurants Es Pes de sa Palla and Amadip Palmanova. She opened Miceli together with her husband, Javier Arés. She has presented her market cooking on the main stage at Madrid Fusión, and she has published Mallorcan cookbooks: twelve traditional recipes, one for each month, illustrated by Tomeu Pinya, plus a volume of sweet recipes. Her motive is a worry she states openly — that sopes and escaldums are no longer being cooked in people's homes. Besides Miceli she runs Arrels by Marga Coll at the Gran Meliá de Mar hotel in Illetas, which works on the same daily-rewritten principle, and La Barra de Miceli inside the Mercat d'Inca — a market bar with no tables and no menu, everything on the blackboard. The village house and getting to the table You come in through a neat lobby and a pretty courtyard. The gleaming open kitchen is at one end of the modern main dining room; polished wooden floors, ceiling beams and shelves crammed with recipe books set the tone. Outside lies the partly covered terrace with potted plants and extensive views, sheltered by a glass porch — Michelin calls it idyllic. Miceli is very popular and last-minute reservations are hard to come by — if you want to be sure of a table, plan well ahead. Bookings are taken by phone, by email or through an online request form; the restaurant manages them itself, asks for a card guarantee, and cancellation terms apply. Children are welcome from the age of twelve. The house runs on a seasonal rhythm, and its closing days shift through the year.