This Saturday, 19 September, the second edition of the Foodies on Menorca Gastronomy Awards was presented in Es Mercadal as part of Fira Arrels 2026.

The Foodies on Menorca Awards for Menorcan Gastronomy aim to recognise the people, establishments and projects that, from different fields, contribute to keeping Menorca’s gastronomy alive, helping it evolve and promoting it beyond the island.

This second edition offers a diverse picture of the island’s gastronomic reality: restaurants that preserve the traditional recipe repertoire, chefs who propose new interpretations of our cuisine, family-run establishments with decades of history, producers linked to the land, artisans, wineries and initiatives that make local produce their reason for being.

Ultimately, these are recognitions of hard work, craftsmanship, perseverance and a way of understanding gastronomy as an inseparable part of Menorca’s culture and identity.

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR 2026

La Cocina de Cristine – Maó

La Cocina de Cristine represents one of the most distinctive perspectives on contemporary Menorcan gastronomy. Located within the boutique hotel Cristine Bedford in Maó, it is led by Pau Sintes, a young chef from Alaior trained in Culinary and Gastronomic Sciences and winner of the European Young Chef Award 2022. His cuisine is deeply rooted in the island, drawing on Menorcan products, producers, recipes and gastronomic memory and expressing them with contemporary sensitivity. It is a refined proposal that never loses the taste of home and demonstrates that tradition and modernity can go hand in hand when the territory is the starting point.

BEST NEW MENORCAN CUISINE RESTAURANT

Micat by Luis Valls – Cala en Bosc, Ciutadella

Micat has arrived in Menorca with a very clear statement of intent: to make the island the origin of every dish. Located at Hotel Casas del Lago in Cala en Bosc, the project is gastronomically directed by Luis Valls, a Valencian chef who consolidated his career at the helm of El Poblet, awarded two Michelin stars. At Micat, haute cuisine techniques are placed at the service of local produce, seasonality, fishermen, farmers and producers from Menorca. The result is elegant and precise signature cuisine that reinterprets Menorca’s gastronomic landscape from a contemporary perspective without severing it from its roots.

BEST MENORCAN CUISINE RESTAURANT

Loar – Ferreries

Loar forms part of everyday life in Ferreries and represents that home-style Menorcan cuisine that has been passed down from generation to generation without the need for artifice. Its restaurant maintains an offering based on local produce and such representative dishes as oliaigua, stuffed aubergines, stuffed squid and lobster caldereta. Alongside this traditional cuisine, it has a popular and open character, with daily menus and a proposal designed both for local residents and visitors. Loar is recognised because preserving gastronomy also means keeping alive the everyday flavours and recipes that form part of Menorca’s collective memory.

BEST RESTAURANT FOR LONG-STANDING EXCELLENCE

Cas Cònsol – Ciutadella

Located in the former French Consulate, with one of the most privileged views over the port of Ciutadella, Cas Cònsol has built its gastronomic identity around Menorcan cuisine, fresh produce and warm, personal service. Esperança and Xec are the soul of an establishment where the catch of the day, seafood preparations and the island’s great classics occupy a central place. Among the latter, the lobster caldereta stands out as one of the restaurant’s emblematic dishes. This award recognises continuity, perseverance and loyalty to a way of understanding hospitality in which cuisine, landscape, produce and hospitality move forward together.

BEST HOTEL RESTAURANT

La Terraza del Balear – Villa Le Blanc Gran Meliá, Sant Tomàs

La Terraza del Balear has been one of the standout gastronomic additions of the 2026 season. The collaboration between Villa Le Blanc Gran Meliá and Café Balear brings to Sant Tomàs an approach to seafood cuisine in which fresh produce takes centre stage. Fish, rice dishes, Mediterranean preparations and seasonal products are integrated into a high-level hotel offering that maintains a clear connection with Menorca. The award recognises precisely this ability to incorporate local gastronomy into the experience of a luxury hotel, making cuisine another gateway to the territory, the sea and the island’s culinary culture.

BEST DAILY MENU

Restaurant Brasserie Pins 46 – Ciutadella

Pins 46 occupies one of the most emblematic spaces in the centre of Ciutadella, in Plaça des Pins, in a historic building with dining room, inner courtyard and terrace. Part of the Café Balear group, it has developed an informal and versatile formula that allows diners to enjoy gastronomy at different times of the day. Its Mediterranean cuisine combines sharing dishes, tapas and more elaborate proposals, maintaining a balanced relationship between quality, variety and accessibility. This award also seeks to highlight the daily menu as an essential part of the restaurant sector: everyday cuisine that requires consistency, regularity and the ability to renew itself.

BEST BUFFET

Minura Sur Menorca – Sant Lluís

The Best Buffet award goes to Minura Sur Menorca, part of the Menorcan Minura Hotels chain, for its commitment to offering a broad, diverse proposal with a particularly strong connection to local produce. Its Sunday buffet has gone beyond a strictly hotel-based offering to become a well-known meeting point among residents from different parts of the island. The variety of dishes, the desire to give Menorcan products a prominent place and a format capable of appealing to very different audiences are the elements recognised by this award. A category that acknowledges that gastronomic quality can take many different forms when backed by judgement and commitment.

BEST GASTROBAR

Calucha – Port of Maó

Calucha, in the port of Maó, represents a relaxed, direct and distinctly Menorcan way of approaching gastronomy. Biel Sintes has turned the venue into a reference point for popular and seafood cuisine in an informal format, with a proposal that brings together perols, octopus with onions, oliaigua, broths, cuttlefish, omelettes and fresh fish. It is a cuisine that looks to the market and the produce available, changes when necessary and recovers recognisable preparations without disguising them. The award recognises this ability to create cuisine with identity in an accessible, dynamic and thoroughly contemporary format.

BEST CHARCOAL-GRILLED CUISINE

Ca na Marga – Fornells

Since 1988, Ca na Marga has made fire its principal hallmark. Its wood-fired grill is at the heart of a proposal that works with selected meats, as well as fish and vegetables, demonstrating that grilling is a technique capable of expressing the product with an apparent simplicity that requires knowledge and precision. Located in the Fornells area, the establishment has consolidated a personality of its own over almost four decades, with cuisine clearly inspired by the Mediterranean. This award recognises the consistency of a restaurant that has made the quality of its ingredients, fire and respect for precise cooking points an entire philosophy.

BEST BAKERY/PASTRY SHOP

Pastisseria Artesana Lluís Febrer – Ferreries

Lluís Febrer is synonymous with craftsmanship, tradition and evolution. He opened his pastry shop in Ferreries in the early 1980s, continuing the legacy of the historic Pastisseria Serra, and since then has combined the preservation of Menorcan baking traditions with a constant desire to innovate. One example is the commitment he began around the year 2000 to gluten-free products, a line that over the years has become a very important part of his production and now reaches beyond Menorca. Breads, ensaimadas, pastries and sweets keep alive an artisan craft that forms an inseparable part of the island’s gastronomic heritage.

BEST PRODUCER

Aceites Francisco Almagro

Aceites Francisco Almagro is the story of a family passion for olive trees transformed into a first-class agri-food project. The project took root in Menorca with the planting of olive trees at Santa Mariana and has grown to include its own oil mill and the cultivation of different varieties such as hojiblanca, picual, arbequina, arbosana and koroneiki. The addition of Pont Modorro has represented an important step in this evolution, substantially expanding both the olive-growing area and production capacity. Alongside extra virgin olive oil, the project has also expanded into other products from the estate, such as honey. A clear commitment to territory, production and quality.

BEST MENORCAN WINE 2026

Binitord Ciutat de Parella –  Celler Binitord

Ciutat de Parella is one of Binitord’s most emblematic wines, produced by a family winery that since 2007 has worked to recover and consolidate wine culture in Menorca through sustainability and respect for the territory. Made from cabernet sauvignon and syrah and aged in French and American oak, it takes its name from the legendary city which, according to tradition, lies submerged off the coast of Ciutadella. Binitord works around five hectares of vineyards and continues to carry out much of its work by hand. This award recognises a wine and, with it, a project that has made a decisive contribution to the revival of Menorcan viticulture.

CAREER RECOGNITION AWARD

Francisco Domínguez Mohedano and Maria Aurea García Martín – Mr. Bep’s, Cala en Blanes

Francisco Domínguez Mohedano and Maria Aurea García Martín represent almost three decades of dedication to the restaurant industry in Cala en Blanes. Mr. Bep’s opened its doors in 1998 and since then has maintained the character of a family-run, welcoming restaurant closely linked to the surrounding resort area. Its Mediterranean proposal includes traditional Menorcan and Spanish recipes, fresh produce and a style of hospitality that has made the restaurant familiar to generations of residents and visitors. This recognition goes beyond the cuisine itself: it rewards years of work, perseverance and a contribution to bringing gastronomic life to one of Ciutadella’s historic tourist areas.

SPECIAL JURY AWARD

Luis Galán Durán – L’Àncora, Cala en Blanes

The Special Jury Award goes to Luis Galán, founder of the family story behind the restaurant L’Àncora in Cala en Blanes. In 1982, together with his wife, Maricarmen Román, he took over a small bar that, through hard work, perseverance and dedication, would eventually become one of the best-known restaurants in the area. For decades, Luis Galán has been closely linked to the restaurant scene in Cala en Blanes and to the consolidation of L’Àncora as a popular, family-run establishment. In 2018, his son Luis, the second generation, took over management, continuing the project begun by his parents.

The event was attended by Maria Antònia Taltavull, Councillor for Economy and General Services of the Consell de Menorca; Pedro Pons, Mayor of Ferreries; José Bosch, President of Menorca Restauració and Gastroselec; Antoni Aguiló, Secretary of Fra Roger; Pep Natta and Margalida Socias, President and Secretary of the Associació de Periodistes i Escriptors Gastronòmics de Balears; and Bep Al·lès, editor of Foodies on Menorca, academic and gastronomic ambassador.