Dinners at restaurant Vinoteca in the cloister garden

On July 1st, our casual restaurant presents two new dishes and fills in with fresh vegetables from the monks’ garden. And the experience will be even more memorable if you enjoy it in the cloister garden. The true luxury at Abadía Retuerta is the space.

Chef Marc Segarra and his team are almost ready to welcome clients and guests in this restaurant that operates seven days a week from eleven o’clock in the morning to eleven o’clock at night. «It is a non-stop, casual restaurant where we want to offer a bit of everything in a menu featuring variety and quality,” says Segarra.

«We want the starters to be fresh and fun, with generous portions that can be shared by two people,» adds the young chef. «Of course, we champion local produce and in summer we will have plenty of vegetables from our garden, especially tomatoes, courgettes and aubergines. The vegetable stir-fry or the aubergine tatin are two real favourites. And we will most probably be adding some ajoblanco (cold almond and garlic soup) or tomato soup.»

Suckling pig and rosemary cream ice cream

But what you must try without fail are the two new dishes in the menu. They both add a touch of sophistication to the standard cuisine at Vinoteca, a friendly nod to our Michelin-starred restaurant Refectorio.

This is especially evident in the meticulous preparation of the suckling pig. Marc Segarra shares some of his techniques with us. «We get piglets from Soria and we cook them in a special way. After thoroughly cleaning them and slightly burning the outside to eliminate any hairs, we split them in two and salt them on the skin side so that they lose moisture and have a crisper texture. Next, we prick them with very small needles so that the fat filters through during the preliminary vacuum cooking. This way, there will be a little less fat than usual. Finally, we roast them in a wood-fired oven so that the meat gets all the flavours and the crispy texture which is the main feature of the dish.”

The rosemary cream ice-cream, on the other hand, is the dish that arguably best sums up what the property is all about, since it includes virtually all the products of the estate besides wine. There’s the rosemary, of course, which grows spontaneously in the area, the pine nuts from our pine trees, and the honey that we make with the 40 beehives we have at Abadía Retuerta. «It’s a truly local dessert, very tasty and easy to drink. We play with different textures: the creaminess of the ice-cream, the broken biscuit and the pine nuts,» Segarra points out.

Probably the best way to experience the wide range of offerings and the two new dishes in the restaurant is over dinner in the cloister garden. Not only because of the peace and natural tranquility that the place inspires, but also because the temperature is really pleasant in the summer.

Safety measures and group menus

For the peace of mind of our guests and clients, we guarantee a two-metre distance between tables and have established a limit of 16 people inside the 80m² restaurant. In the cloister garden the distances may be even greater thanks to the natural separation that the hedges provide.

In addition to the menu, which can be browsed here, Vinoteca offers two menus for groups of eight or more people: the Garduña menu and the Negralada menu, both of which are very well paired with our Abadía Retuerta Selección Especial. To enjoy the experience as much as possible, these menus must be booked 15 days in advance, indicating any intolerances or allergies.