DOQ Priorat · Catalunya

Mater Terrae

The restaurant inside Terra Dominicata in DOQ Priorat — a separate building of the restored Carthusian farmstead, with Fran López (Xerta, Villa Retiro) at the gastronomic…

The verdict

A restaurant in the old Carthusian farmhouse at Terra Dominicata, directed by Fran López — chef of the Michelin-starred Xerta in Barcelona and Villa Retiro in the Ebro delta. The room is built around a glass wall of the cellar; the menu reads Priorat without the rhetoric.

From the editors · Vedere House

The particulars

Setting: The old farmhouse at Terra Dominicata, Escaladei — Montsant Natural Park, DOQ Priorat
Direction: Fran López — chef of Xerta (1★) and Villa Retiro (1★), one of southern Catalonia's defining kitchens
Kitchen: Priorat traditional, contemporary technique — estate olive oil, Montsant herbs, the pasture and orchard within an hour
Cellar: More than three hundred references from DOQ Priorat and DO Montsant, plus the Terra Dominicata estate wines on tap
Format: Lunch 13:00–14:30, dinner 20:00–21:30; tasting menu in the green room, à la carte on the pergola in summer
Best for: A long Priorat lunch on the terrace, or a long Priorat dinner by the fire

Mater Terrae is the restaurant at Terra Dominicata, in a separate building of the restored Carthusian farmhouse a kilometre and a half below the Cartoixa d'Escaladei. The room is built around a floor-to-ceiling glass wall of the cellar — three hundred references from DOQ Priorat and DO Montsant, lit from behind, kept the way the rest of the house keeps things. Fran López — chef of Xerta in Barcelona and Villa Retiro on the Ebro, both with Michelin stars — directs the kitchen.

“
A Priorat dining room that ends at the cellar, and a Priorat menu that begins in the vineyard outside the door.
”

Sur place

The kitchen reads the property. The estate olive oil, the herbs from Montsant, the vegetables from the kitchen garden, the pasture and orchard within an hour's drive. Where the cooking is contemporary the technique is from Fran López's starred kitchens — pollen, pickle, low-temperature treatment — but the dishes themselves stay close to Catalan tradition: rices, the Mediterranean peix and carn, the artichokes when they are right. The wine list is Priorat-and-Montsant first, and the estate's own wines (Domus Aquilae, Garnatxa Peluda, Macabeu) come straight from the cellar across the wall.

There are three rooms to eat in, and a fourth in summer. The green-panelled dining room holds the tasting menu in communal arrangement. A second, more intimate room takes the round tables and the fireplace at night. The wine wall is the formal lunch room. In summer the pergola opens, and most of the long midday lunches happen there — striped banquettes, woven cane shade, the long view to the olive groves and the slate slopes of the valley.

Signature moments

A long communal table in a deep racing-green dining room — green velvet banquette, framed cartographic prints under warm wall lamps, bamboo armchairs along the table set with linen and stemware.

The green room

A panelled dining room of deep racing-green walls, a long velvet banquette, framed Catalan cartographic prints lit by warm pendant lamps, bamboo armchairs along the table — set communally for the tasting menu, set for two on the round tables when the room is quieter.

A close shot of the chef's hand sprinkling pale pollen over an arrangement of crisp golden tuiles and dark fruit on a white plate.

The kitchen, at the pass

Fran López's hand — sprinkling pollen over a low composition of pickled blackberries and beetroot wafers, plating a courgette ribbon roll on a wooden disc. The technique is from his Michelin kitchens in Xerta and Amposta; the produce is the estate's, and the menu is Priorat's.

A summer lunch on the outdoor pergola — striped linen pillows, plates of vegetables on dark stoneware, a bottle of rosé, a glass carafe of olive oil, dappled light through reed shade overhead.

Lunch on the pergola

Outside in summer — a striped banquette under reed shade, a bottle of estate rosé in a black glass cooler, a board of crudités, a bowl of marinated artichokes, the long view across the olive groves. The dappled light does the rest.

Inside the house

The outdoor pergola at midday — a long trestle table under a woven cane shade, striped banquettes along one side, the courtyard's stone wall and a wide tree behind.

A close shot of a courgette-ribbon roll being plated on a sliced wooden disc — the chef's hand placing micro-herbs on top with tweezers.

A round table dressed in white linen with gilt-rimmed glassware and a sun-disc place setting, an open fire glowing in the hearth across the room.

A waiter in a white shirt setting a long table for the tasting menu, two large woven black pendants overhead, caned shelving along the wall, leather chairs on the warm wood floor.

Return to

Le Carnet