Plaer Natural

Eating healthy is a real pleasure

The restaurant has a simple charm with homey echoes. And the same could be said of the food.

Author: Joan Ramis Boscana

They say that to get to know a city you must get lost in it. A disorientation that usually occurs when wandering through the historic center of Palma, where hundreds of narrow streets intersect in a multitude of intersections leading to different areas. Today we ended up in Sa Gerreria, a neighborhood with a lot of tradition that is undergoing a new impetus and where the bars, one of its claims, sit on their terraces to young people who want to snack and have a nice time with friends. We enter the Plaça de la Quartera, where the Bar Flexas or the Tortillería, in the evening, are two of the centers of animation par excellence. Today the weather is not very nice because it is drizzling, and the weather pushes us to seek shelter in the Plaer Natural, a vegetarian restaurant located next to the Flamingos Vintage Kilo store. A place that stands out for its homemade and healthy dishes. An irresistible combination.

The heat envelops us as soon as we set foot in the restaurant, which on the right hand side has a bar facing a large window from which we can observe the rain soaking the square. We are at ease in Plaer Natural, a place that has a deceptive size at first glance. It seems narrow and of discreet proportions, but its three heights indicate the opposite. If we leave the bar behind and go to the back of the restaurant, a couple of steps lead us down to an open room located at a slightly lower level, populated by a few tables. In one corner of the restaurant, a few steps lead us up to the top floor, where we can eat at a railing. There is an architectural element that is recurrent in Plaer Natural, and that is the arch. We can see it to structure the place in different environments, to climb a staircase or to scrutinize the interior of a kitchen that smells deliciously. And we depend on it.

The waitress invites us to sit downstairs, where the feeling of shelter on a day like today is even greater. A group of friends are finishing their plates, with a bottle of wine presiding over the table. You can hear them in high spirits. The girl who served us asks if we prefer a quieter place, but the excitement of their chatter doesn't really matter to us. What does matter to us is the second menu option offered by Plaer Natural - the first is somewhat shorter - which consists of three courses and dessert. The reason that leads us to choose that alternative, beyond our appetite, is that we want to try as many dishes as possible. We communicate our order to the waitress, who leaves for the bar, walking on a hydraulic floor. The restaurant has a simple charm with homey echoes. And the same could be said of the food.

The first dish comes in the form of a salad. Its ingredients? A quinoa that, together with arugula, supports a small army of chickpeas, whose sandy texture confronts the freshness of coriander and cucumber. A mixture that is anything but heavy, Mediterranean, and that we have been served without frivolity. The freshness of this bet is coordinated with the warmth of the second, which is a vegetarian interpretation of fricandó, which instead of meat has seitan cuts mixed with basmati rice, peas, carrot and potato. A stew that could have been prepared by our mother, with a thickness that fills without being filling and a temperature that indicates it has just been removed from the heat. The spoon gloats in the bowl until its edges are clean.

Just when we almost thought the party was going to be over, a taco of a volume we didn't expect - big is for sure - appears before us with a filling of mushrooms, mozzarella and gochujang hummus, which unlike the more conventional, is fermented with soy and hot peppers. The pancake is crispy, a feel that crackles in our mouth to collide head-on with the fluffiness of the hummus. At some point, we resort to the knife and fork because the inside of the taco spills out onto the plate. We help ourselves to the brown bread that was served as a starter so as not to leave a trace of anything.

We would love to tell you about the dessert: a carob cake bathed in blueberry sauce. But you'll have to try it for yourself.