Vicent Vila: “Using local produce should be an obligation”

C.M./Sant Climent – If there is a restaurant in Menorca where the expressions “zero-kilometre” and “local produce” truly make sense, it is Es Molí de Foc (Carrer de Sant Llorenç, 65, Sant Climent – 971 15 32 22), one of the great temples of Menorcan gastronomy, housed in a former 19th-century grain mill. Vicent Vila (Carcaixent, Valencia, 1958), owner and former chef of the establishment, now 67, has stood out over the years for his passionate defence of Menorcan produce. Vicent and his wife Clara launched a new chapter for the restaurant on 16 May 1996, managing it until, in 2006, they offered the owners — the Swiss couple Natale and Margarita Sciammanna — a purchase option, which they accepted. After retiring just under a year ago, Vila decided to leave the restaurant in the hands of the new head chef, Mario Delgado. The restaurant’s offer, which has appeared uninterruptedly in the Michelin Guide for 28 years, focuses on rice dishes, with traditional recipes reinterpreted through new flavours. Vila, who was named santclimenter de s’anyand delivered the local festival proclamation, is a music lover. He trained at the Valencia Conservatory and plays trumpet and flugelhorn in the Maó Music Band.

Did you imagine from a young age that you would dedicate yourself to the restaurant world?
I trained as a historian, but I’ve never worked in that field. After finishing my studies, I went into nightlife. I had bars and a jazz club. In 1983 I opened the Massanassa café, and I ran it for seven years.

Three years ago you published a book to mark 25 years at the helm of Es Molí de Foc: 25 anys d’intensitat culinària (1996–2021). A large-format book with more than 300 pages. Quite a feat...
My idea was to make a book with the most representative dishes we’ve cooked over the years, and for people to see who is behind each product. For example, the beer we brew here, which wins awards every time it leaves the island. Grahame Pearce Sant Climent is possibly the cheapest craft beer produced in Spain — despite its price. Today we are the islands’ leading brewery, with more than 100,000 litres. There was a time when Spain had around 400 craft breweries, with a 7% market share. But industrial beer producers have stepped up, moving from making fizzy, bicarbonate-like alcohol waters to making good beers. As a result, almost all the craft breweries have closed.

Are the rest of the raw ingredients you use also “zero-kilometre”?
Yes — for example, meat. I buy half of our meat here in Sant Climent, from the Mussumptà de Baix farm. I’ve always bought Menorcan produce. Price has never mattered to me. There are figures that make me feel ashamed: people in Ibiza consume only 4% of the products made on the island; Mallorcans, 7%; and Menorcans — who consume the most — 11%. Even so, I don’t think using local produce deserves an award: it’s an obligation for any restaurateur. On our menu we offer all Menorcan wines. We buy vegetables from Eduard Vinent and his brother in Torelló d’Amagat, and for a long time we bought them from els Vergers de Sant Joan. Peppers, tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines… we buy everything here. All the fish comes from sa Llonja, at the port of Maó: prawns, langoustines, lobster… We source mussels from the mussel farms in the port of Maó.

Rice dishes are what made the restaurant famous...
It’s a bit of a long story. When I opened the restaurant in 1996, the menu had only one rice dish. People were very surprised, because I would bring to the table a big pot with just half a finger’s depth of rice. Here, people were used to seeing the pot overflowing with rice — and they quickly realised the flavour was on a different level. Little by little, people started coming to Es Molí de Foc to eat a small rice dish. In the end, I created a whole rice menu, with thirteen or fourteen different rice dishes. At that time, restaurateurs who had trained abroad looked down a bit on what we did. When their restaurants closed, they came here and saw the place packed, with everyone eating rice. So in the end they all added rice dishes to their menus. We were the first to start, with the philosophy of making different rice dishes. For example, we make a brothy partridge rice with delicious botifarró; an arròs brut with thrushes; the arròs del senyoret, which is our biggest hit… We even have arròs d’en Serrat on the menu, because Serrat comes here to eat often. He likes the arròs del senyoret, but he prefers it a bit more “loaded”.

The number of famous people who have been through the restaurant is countless...
Besides Serrat — who has a house here and is one of our best clients — a lot of people have come through the restaurant, from Iñaki Gabilondo to actor Daniel Craig and his wife Rachel Weisz, the Monty Python comedians, and several prime ministers. Manuel Valls, who has a house in Sant Climent, comes often. The President of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, has been here three times, as has the Prime Minister of Portugal. And many athletes: the Gasol brothers, Xavi, Busquets…