Miga de Nube

Gastronomy and art because both nourish

In Miga de Nube they give their all to offer a healthy menu, an objective they achieve thanks to their vegetable garden where they harvest some of their products.

Author: Joan Ramis Boscana

We are about to make a straight out confession: we are in love with Sóller. During the last few weeks we have absorbed the orange essence that emanates from its fields, we have been captivated by all the products that are born from such a fruitful land. But there was still a notch to be ticked, a box to be ticked for our knowledge of the town to be completely satisfactory. We could not feel the true character of the village without passing through a street that brings together the heartbeat of its inhabitants, which is the carrer de Sa Lluna. Before entering the establishment where we have arranged to meet, Forn de barri tries to pull us in, they cast an artisan spell on us that we can barely get around. Their products look as tasty as they are healthy, but we must reserve our appetite for Miga de Nube, a place that caught our attention from the moment we discovered it. The reason? Come in with us and you'll find out.

With our feet already inside the place, we immediately understand that Miga de Nube is a space gifted with infinite sensitivity. Here you don't just come to eat, far from it. Here you come to drink tea, to get covered in art, to embrace the concept that Cris and Candela, its owners, launched to define the nature of this place: slow café & atelier. From the beginning we are struck by the decoration of Miga de Nube, that of an atelier that varies its appearance and never stays the same. We are in an old village house whose walls have been sanded to recover their original colors. The floor is made of stone, and there are works of art of all kinds hanging from the walls, especially paintings. Culture and gastronomy cohabit here because, as its founders say: everything nourishes. If we were to look up the definition of picturesque in the dictionary, next to it there would be an image of this atelier, where some foreign customers drink the pearl of the house: a coffee roasted in Mallorca that, according to what they say, is just delicious. 

The waitress guides us to our table, and along the way we pass a counter and a display case with pieces of banana bread, chocolate and orange tarts, pineapple and coconut panna cotta or raspberry and apple crumbles. No need to swear that everything is homemade; its appearance speaks for itself. At Miga de Nube they give their all to make their menu healthy, an objective they achieve thanks to their vegetable garden where they harvest some of the products. Zero kilometer is one of the maxims of this restaurant, which has a garden that leaves us amazed. The air flows under a roof formed by lemon tree leaves and climbing plants. This place is like a palace built for the sake of ecology. When we look at the salads our table neighbors are eating, the color green invades our sight: one is ordered with avocado and pickled egg, the other is dotted with pear and what looks like saffron. The plates are so plentiful that the two friends could bathe in them.

We are undecided: should we order an artisan cheese plate for a snack, or should we indulge in a baba ganoush we haven't tasted in a while? While our doubts invade us and a dog drinks from a bowl next to some clivias, the menu of Miga de Nube speaks to us clearly: here the food reaches organic heights like in few other places. That's why we decided to go for one of the queens of their proposal, which are the tostadas. A dish that we are going to mix with something to dip bread in. A bread, by the way, which is made with sourdough. When the waitress returns with our order in hand, she does it stepping on some pebbles that cover the garden. She places some glazed ceramic plates on our table: one is loaded with sundried tomato hummus, the other with a piece of toast that has been nicknamed El Alfonso.

The first thing we do is grab a piece of pita bread that is warm and smells just like home. We coat it in hummus and take it to the only place it can be directed to: our mouth. Of all the details we try to catch, there is one that stands out, and that is the taste of black olives tumbling down a mountain of russet. Now the knife and fork travel away to the other plate, show their passport and split the toast in half. On the bread rests a bed of cheese made with dill. And what does the dill tell us? Well, it tells us that we should mix it with the wild salmon that adds a pink layer to the dish. If we say that the toast is a festival of flavors - the bitterness of the capers is well managed with the softness of the cucumber - we are not lying, I swear. And so we are in good balance between the sweet and salty that the hummus provides, enjoying the juicy texture of a salmon with a dreamy taste. Because that is what Miga de Nube has invited us to: a real dream.