FUSION19
Bucking any fleeting trends, the Balearic gastronomic revolution is taking shape in an ageing room. Located on Playa de Muro and awarded a Michelin Star and a Repsol Sun, Fusion19 has rewritten the rules of tradition through extended ageing and curing. At the helm of the kitchen, the duo of Marc Marsol and Aleix Serra pay tribute to memory from a fiercely technical perspective. The perfect pairing for this bold venture? An all-female front-of-house team led by Arantxa Calonge. With a solid track record in Spanish haute cuisine, the maître d’ and sommelier effortlessly oversees impeccable service and a wine cellar with 600 labels.
“We spend more hours sharing a table than we do at home”. Marc Marsol and Aleix Serra welcome us with this confession, perfectly illustrating the level of harmony demanded by contemporary haute cuisine. They share a space, a vision and an unwavering passion for a craft that knows no shortcuts. Together, they have managed to forge their own language, untouched by passing trends. “We’re making the project more and more personal,” they state proudly.
At Fusion19, excellence is not at odds with warmth. Far from the rigidity of traditional fine-dining restaurants, the obsession of these chefs is crystal clear: “people should feel very comfortable, very calm, relaxed and come to enjoy the experience”. To help achieve this, the restaurant offers a warm, unpretentious service, ensuring that the connection between the kitchen, the dining room and the diner flows completely naturally.
At a time when the word “fusion” seems to have lost some of its impact in the current food scene, they give it a new and profound meaning. “The restaurant’s name dates back to long before we started working here,” they explain. However, rather than rejecting it, they have shaped it to their liking. “We try to fuse things together, we work with Japanese produce, Peruvian produce... But ultimately, everything has local roots”. Their offering is a sublime reinterpretation of the Balearic recipe book, using fermentation, curing and age-old techniques to elevate local produce, often humble in nature, to culinary greatness.
Fusion19 reinterprets the Balearic recipe book using fermentation, curing and age-old techniques
If there’s one thing that sets Fusion19 apart and makes a pilgrimage to its tables worthwhile, it’s their technical mastery of time and the ageing process. “We have ageing rooms because it’s a big part of what we do, for both fish and meat”. What elsewhere is a mere footnote on the menu is, here, the very DNA of the restaurant. “In Mallorca, there’s no one else doing what we do,” claim both chefs.
Their four rooms are true umami laboratories. They achieve unprecedented textures and concentrations of flavour, venturing into the marine world, an extremely complex sphere where any mistake is fatal. The standards are so high that three of the 20 professionals who make up the team devote their entire working day exclusively to managing and tending to these ageing processes.
Teamwork, technique and memory
The creative process at Fusion19 steers clear of egos and is a genuine team effort. “Together, we draw up a list of all the ingredients we want to introduce each season and that gives us 30,000 ideas,” they explain. The entire staff contributes, fostering an ecosystem where young talent has a voice and feels part of the success.
From this synergy comes their proposal for this year. A menu that weaves together the land, technique and memory throughout its courses. The journey begins with a heartfelt tribute to Mallorcan garlic soup, “pa cuit”, an edible vegetable landscape that anchors the diner in the island from the very first mouthful. After that, the menu dazzles with masterful contrasts: from a robust blue crab stew with the soul of Basque txangurro, to a Cantonese-inspired lamb broth served with a meat-and-spice dumpling of local charcuterie.
But the real showstopper arrives with the “seafood charcuterie”. Dusky grouper, a staple of Balearic fish markets, is placed in to the hallowed ageing rooms to be reborn: appearing as a marbled belly cut that rivals the finest Iberian ham, or as a smoked mojama that captures the very essence of the Mediterranean. Japanese techniques are also applied to dishes such as cod cured in kombu, demonstrating a global elegance that never loses sight of the local ethos, supplied largely by the restaurant’s own vegetable garden in Alcudia.
Excellence in the kitchen demands a setting to match, and this season Fusion19 has established a front-of-house team composed entirely of women. A commitment that translates into exquisite, empathetic service, rich in nuance, enchanting diners from the moment they walk through the door.
At the helm of this impeccable choreography is Arantxa Calonge, who takes on the dual and demanding role of maître d’ and sommelier. Her experience at some of the country’s most renowned Michelin-starred establishments (from El Mirador de Ulía to DiverXO, via Es Fum) enables her to offer service that is both meticulous and exceptionally warm. Under her guidance, Fusion19’s wine cellar boasts 600 labels. Arantxa is responsible for translating the complex language of Marc and Aleix’s ageing processes to the glass, ensuring that every dish finds its perfect balance. This is the best proof that time is, without a doubt, the restaurant’s most valuable ingredient.
