Now yes, Ponzano: The Greenhouse of Rodrigo de la calle opens in the center of Madrid
He had us on tenterhooks. The chef Rodrigo of the Street, originator of the concept gastrobotany , announced a few months ago that his restaurant The GreenHouse would leave La Torre Boxart Hotel (Collado Mediano) to embark on a new adventure in the center of Madrid.
No one suspected that it would be in full Ponzano street , in what was once the Estanislao Carenzo's Sudestada restaurant . In this new location, de La Calle is in charge of transferring the diner to a vegetable world as soon as they cross the door, with a warm and natural atmosphere with an intimate capacity for 20 people.
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As part of this new offer , they find the #Vegetable menu, which has about 20 dishes, as well as a more extensive version, #Vegetable Power. All with the option of being 100% vegetable or adding meat, fish and cheese.
The definition of this cuisine is simple: haute cuisine vegetable origin . It sounds almost impossible but Thanks to Rodrigo de la Calle, vegetables, those eternal companions of meat and fish, take the power of the dishes.
Although the chef affirms that it has not been easy. "It's like any other change in people's habits. It's very difficult to reach everyone and make them change the forms of gastronomic celebration that have been instilled in them since they were little. I am not going to say that it has been easy, but I am very satisfied since most of the people who come to my restaurant leave very happy. of having had a unique vegetal experience”, he comments to Traveler.es.
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“And right there is our work as educators and as transmitters of the message that a meal with vegetables as the main elements it can be just as good as one with meat or fish . In addition to healthier and more sustainable . As a father and a chef in a restaurant, I am managing to make him understand, so I encourage everyone to bring out their greenest side to make our diet a little healthier”, concludes de la Calle.
With names like “celery – soy”, “avocado – rhubarb”, “melon – ficoide” and “aubergine – ginger”, the dishes on both menus fill with color thanks to a pigment known as phycocyanin.
"It is the same superfood that I presented at Madrid Fusión this year, which is the chlorophyll of the spirulina algae and that we add to the water that we serve in the restaurant. The good thing about chlorophyll is that it does not contain the taste of algae , if not it contains all the nutrients and a blue color that our guests find very surprising", explains the chef.
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We also asked Rodrigo about the importance of superfoods and if he sees the need to include them in his menu.
"These products, beyond finding them in herbalists or nutrition stores (and although a little more is known each time), are still great unknowns. We have been using **all kinds of superfoods** for years and always rely on them when in some dishes we have a lack of nutrients, as in the case of dishes with mushrooms, which have a very low nutritional value”.
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The "live" and unpasteurized food, where the fermented ones are the protagonists, also gains importance and becomes more than evident in its pairing, where you can taste fermented vegetable drinks and wines . In the case of home-made ones, innovative proposals such as ** kombucha , mead or water kefir, drinks naturally fermented by fungi are surprising.**
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"At El Invernadero we try to look for the essence of food and for this many times we start from the basis that it is fresh food, as it comes from the fields and from there we shape it and, depending on the final result we would like to obtain, we apply some techniques or others. Fermentation is key since it allows us not only to have the probiotic elements (which give it more nutritional value) but also because artificial caloric energy does not intervene, the nutrients in vegetables degrade much less and make them easier to digest, "says Rodrigo from his restaurant.
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Address: Calle Ponzano, 85 See map
Telephone: 628 93 93 67
Schedule: From Monday to Sunday from 1:20 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. and from 8:20 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.