The GPS went awry among dirt paths flanked by stones that act as both boundaries and windbreaks on this island, accustomed to challenging the tramontane. “At the end of the path you’ll see an old white Land Rover parked. From there take the path to the right,” he had told us earlier, when there was still signal, Gabriel, a Venezuelan who has made Menorca his home for 24 years.
Before finding his place in the world, Gabriel learned his trade in bars in London, Michelin-starred restaurants in the Alps, eatery houses in India and Vietnam, traversing the world as a nomad of the stoves, soaking up culinary techniques and learning everything about the product. The end of his gastronomic odyssey led him to an old charcoal burner’s hut in the middle of a forest of holm oaks and olive trees in the island’s interior, which, after being rebuilt with stone and wood from the estate, became Casa Humo: a meeting place around gastronomy with wood, fire, and smoke as protagonists. “Ours is about creating rustic, unique and personalized gastronomic experiences,” he tells us.
Casa Humo is not a restaurant: it is a place where time, conversation and table are shared. Anthony Bourdain used to say that “the more you learn about a person, the more you learn when you share a meal with them,” and Humo’s leitmotiv is precisely to bring people together around a table for intimate evenings, where the sublime in simple things is appreciated.
The experience takes place at the magical hour, when the sun begins to set and the countryside takes a breath. Our meeting with Gabriel, however, happens in the afternoon, with the heat, when cicadas scream to attract mates. This soundtrack, together with the large wooden table covered by a checked cloth, the clay water jug with fresh water, the board of artisanal cheeses, and the basket of freshly baked bread, under the shade of the olive trees and the sweet scent of prickly pears, turns this moment into a perfect postcard of the Mediterranean.
Vermouth, Cheese, Butter
Inside the house, the pantry shelves fill with jars of preserves, salted fish and pickles, flanked by garlic strings, dried peppers and sprigs of aromatic herbs hanging from the ceiling. In the kitchen, another large wooden table is the island where Gabriel prepares his dishes. In his blue work jacket and a bone-colored apron speckled with ash, Gabriel is the image of rustic chic as he slices thick pieces from a block of organic cecina and adds them to a tomato and pomegranate salad drizzled with olive oil from the northern part of the island.
