Entomofagia | Mexican Michelin restaurant Punto MX integrates insects in his tasting menu
Mexican Michelin restaurant Punto MX in Madrid presents its menu Entomofagia and leads the way by being the first restaurant in Europe to integrate insects in various forms into the very DNA of a tasting menu. Dishes are created through research over a 4-year duration while it was prohibited to serve these bugs. How about this dish: Surf’n’turf Guacamole with smoked marlin, 36 month-aged Parmesan, avocado, pomegranate, jalapeños and crispy Chinicuil-worms from the agave plant.
Punto MX in Madrid
Like it or not, insects will have to take a greater part in future menus, everyday foods and general nutritions. The production pollution is at an absolute minimum and insects might also be the key to solving world hunger too.
It’s undoubtedly a bold move by Roberto Ruíz to become a foreman on this front, but if anyone can do it, it’s him. We’re not referring to making bugs an OMG-effect as seen at restaurants previously, but instead about going deeply into shaping a future path by integrating insects in various forms into the very DNA of a tasting menu. This with cooking techniques and recipes completely different from the traditional Mexican way of cooking with insects.
In six years Punto MX has gone from being a local restaurant down the corner, to one of the hottest dinner tickets in all of Madrid; with a tantalizing Mexican cuisine based on Spanish ingredients supported by La Huerto de lat Retamilla Ecológico; an impressive 9 hectares biodynamic orchard in Segovia north of Madrid, where more than 80 different species of Mexican products are grown, which makes Ruiz’s places the only 100% self-sufficient Mexican restaurant in Europe.
Since Roberto Ruíz, Maria Fernandez and Martin Eccius opened Punto MX in 2012 it has been a dream to incorporate insects into the menu. An important part of gastronomy in Mexico where none less than 549 different species are consumed. But the use was not approved by the EU before this year which gave Roberto Ruíz years to research, test, create flavour combinations and techniques that now are being unfolded in most refined way by introducing the world to Entomofagia.
The menu | Entomofagia
Until now all the people we have heard about eating at Punto MX are very, very excited about their experience. Entomofagia must be Mexican magic at its very finest, and potentially also the way to unfold the huge potential that Mexican Cuisine has, to become a culinary leader on the world scene. With dishes such as the insanely beautiful ‘surf’n’turf Guacamole with smoked marlin, 36 month-aged Parmesan, avocado, pomegranate, jalapeños and crispy Chinicuil-worms from the agave plant’ or the very complex ‘Monkfish Aguachile with vegetables prepared in flames, tomato, avocado and Chicatana; bellies of flying ants crushed tableside’ or…. Check out the images. The champion of the menu must be the simple looking and yet packed with creamy, nutty and deep flavours in shape of Escamoles aka the Queen of Insects aka ant pupas harvested from the very deep roots of the agave plant – gently seared with garlic and chili in bone marrow fat and arranged in a split bone marrow on top of soil made by corn and chicatana ants.
The menu premiered April 27th with famed Ferran Adrià as one of the first guests. Ferran was also highly intrigued and stated on scene that Punto MX “might just be the best Mexican restaurant in the world right now”. The Spanish food press is all worked up, and the restaurant experiences weeks waiting lists, at peaks up to two months, with the insect menu being optional at Punto MX.
Punto MX in Madrid is the first European restaurant to offer a menu using insects as integrated ingredients throughout a menu, just as it was the first restaurant in Europe to achieve a Michelin star with Mexican food. Roberto Ruíz eleborates:
“Entomophagy is about roots. My father is from one of the significant Mexican areas of insects; El Valle de Mezquital in Hidalgo, so insects was a big part of my childhood. It’s my personal taste, it’s protein contribution, it’s unique to the world and the reason why we brought it to Spain. Along with everything else we do at Punto MX it’s about bringing the authentic Mexico to Europe, although the recipes and cooking techniques of Entomophagy is unknown even to my home country.”
Website: Restaurant Punto MX
