The Merchants – Steak & Grill is a renowned New York-style steakhouse in the heart of the Majorcan capital, Palma, owned by parent company Five Senses Collection. Located in the beautiful five-star boutique hotel Palacio Can Marques their menu offers a delightful combination of premium steaks and fresh seafood in dishes created by Irish chef Stephen Sullivan. The restaurant is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and has both inside and secret garden al fresco dining options. 

We talked to Chief Executive Officer Edgar Lagassi about the restaurant’s philosophy and approach to sourcing quality ingredients and producing cuisine of the highest standards as well as the state of the restaurant market in Majorca currently and their plans for the future.

Luxury Lifestyle Awards: How is the restaurant industry in Majorca currently doing?  

Edgar Lagassi: For restaurants in Mallorca, covid has brought many ups and downs starting with supply chain challenges, rapidly evolving customer behaviors, and a constant labor crunch.

But for restaurant owners, the uncertainty in the industry and the need to survive financially have led them to innovate like never before. Also, a lot of business opportunities have arisen giving opportunity for new operators like us at Five Senses Collection to bring something new & fresh to the industry.

I feel that this year, whoever survived will benefit a lot as will be a very strong year with a much stronger competition between the restaurants. Of course, the tourists vising Mallorca this year and local guests will also see a very different industry with more innovation and customer focused. 

LLA: How have you had to adapt the way you operate since reopening after the global pandemic? 

Edgar: I think the most exciting moments during covid was like not a day was same as the previous days especially with all the daily changes restrictions imposed by the local authority. As a company, we were well ahead due to our global experience and that helped as massively, the main things that have changed since covid are the diversity of revenue streams, system automation, customer loyalty scheme, play a better role in the community and manage labor shortage with smart restaurant technology.

LLA: What processes do you have in place to ensure the safety and hygiene of your food and customers? 

Edgar: As I have mentioned on previous question, we have a lot of daily procedures in place to ensure cleanings and highest hygiene processes before covid started. Therefore, we didn’t have to change massively our daily operation apart from the staff check for temperature, safety distance between tables and guest cover capacity reduction.

LLA: Where does your main customer base come from?  

Edgar: As we started our company right in the beginning of the Pandemic, the normal tourist clients we didn’t have which is a massive part of any hospitality business based in an island like Mallorca. Therefore, we have built up a good local clientele base with a good mix between Spanish and expats who lives in Mallorca.

LLA: Do you attract a lot of tourist business?  

Edgar: Last year, yes we did! The Merchants have managed to become an institution in Palma in a very short time. There are a lot of places recommending us, and the tourist are very excited to come to visit us before they even arrive in the island. In the peak of the high season, we were fully booked by a month in advance.

LLA: How do you promote your restaurant? 

Edgar: All our restaurants success are based on personal recommendation and word of mouth but of course we have focused on all sort of social media channels especially Facebook and Instagram.

LLA: What is the concept behind your menu?  

Edgar: If you like your steak with a side of seafood, we will be giving you just that.  The concept idea is to bring something brighter, lighter, and fresher take on a classic steak house.The Culinary Chef Stephen Sullivan have curated a collection of the world’s best cuts and globally influenced dishes for a more approachable 2020’s steakhouse experience with fun, shareable, streaming style of continuous service and something-for-everyone appeal. Sourcing freshly caught lobster and premium steaks, the Merchants provides the city with a fresh and authentic take on the surf and turf with rustic and ‘down to earth’ plates.

LLA: How do you go about sourcing the best ingredients and where do you look to source them from? 

Edgar: Before we open our restaurants, we have visited a lot of suppliers around the Island to check their facilities and get to know them all too. Most our ingredients are sourced locally, except the meat which is more challenging to find with the high quality that we expect to be served at Merchants.

LLA: What is your personal favourite dish on the menu? 

Edgar: That’s is a pretty hard question, as I have designed the menu with our Executive Chef and a love all the dishes in our menu. However, if I have to recommend one dish – It must be our signature dish that we brought to the Island that is now copied by many restaurants in the island which is our TNT PRAWNS. Our TNT Prawns are one of the best things you will ever try on earth. My second choice and most sold dish in the menu is of course our REEF & BEEF that comes with a beautiful piece of Ribeye steak with half Canadian Lobster.

LLA: Does the restaurant have what you would consider a signature dish? 

Edgar: Our signature dish that we brought to the Island which is now inspired by many restaurants and some beach clubs in Mallorca to have on their menu too due to its success is our TNT PRAWNS – Tiger prawns in tempura batter with TNT sauce served on a copper Martini glass.

LLA: Is your menu affected and adapted due to seasonal availability of produce?  

Edgar: Definitely, we have a menu change twice in a year in all our restaurants to keep up with the seasonality.

LLA: Who takes care of sourcing your wine? 

Edgar: For us, this is the most fun part of owning a restaurant like The Merchants but also the WINEING which is another concept owned by Five Senses Collection that display 48 different wines served by the glass through some cool enomatic machines. Myself and my two other partners – Marius and Andrius alongside with my senior manager have several tastings around March and October every year to taste the new vintages and new wines. We only select wines when we all like, so our supplier always have some hard time to please everyone.

LLA: What are you looking for when creating a well-rounded wine list?  

Edgar: Our wine list at Merchants caters for all, our wines are normally exclusive and not easily found in the island. You can have a very decent entry level wine, some beautiful Mallorquin wines that is actually better than many recognize bodegas to the most well-knows expensive wines from around the world.

LLA: Tell us about your resident mixologist and your signature cocktails. 

Edgar: We have 2 of the most creative people developing our cocktails list – Gilon and Damian – both from London which we have worked together while in Soho House. The Merchants Spritz is definitely a must try especially on hot days as it is so refreshing.

LLA: Where do you recruit your staff from? 

Edgar: We have formed a foundation with people who we have worked previously in London, that is probably what makes us so different in Mallorca as our service approach is very London-style.

LLA: How do you ensure the highest standards of service at all times? 

Edgar: Through daily briefing, constant training, one to one development chat. Mostly important, myself, Mariusz and Andrius are very hands on owner who are on the daily operation managing all our restaurants. We eat, breath, sleep FIVE SENSES ethos.

LLA: What are your plans for the future? 

Five Senses Collection: The sky is the limit for us really!

We have always dreamed of sharing the desire to translate our past experiences from the Hospitality into an environment that approached our ideas of what a lifestyle dining destination should be like. Each of us at some stage of our professional careers has had the opportunity to work in some of the most emblematic hotels, restaurants and bars around the world.  Our experiences, confidence, knowledge and above all important passion for good food, service and drinks united us to create something very special in Spain.

We are a very young group on entrepreneur who wants to strive, we are now in search of an investor who can take our to the next level of our journey and potentially open up more restaurants in top locations of the Baleriac, Barcelona, Madrid and potentially even back in London.