There is something in Lorena Delgado’s way of cooking that calls for more than simple flavours, however delicate and tasty they may be. Perhaps because what she cooks not only nourishes: it embraces, remembers, accompanies, heals. Her cooking gestures are gentle but firm. Everything this chef does is done with intention. And that intention is key in everything she cooks.
Lorena Delgado learned to look at food as something sacred. As a child, she watched her mother cook ancient wisdom. In the Colombian Pacific where she was born, among women and celebrations, she discovered that cooking is not only about ingredients, but also about memories, care and affection. However, her vocation as a chef emerged when she settled in Barcelona 24 years ago, where she opened up to a universe of flavours. She was self-taught at home, leafing through magazines, trying almost any food she came across. Then, curious, practising recipes and sitting down to eat in hundreds of restaurants.
On that sensory journey she understood that the product is everything. Thanks to a close relationship with a sommelier at El Bulli, she had the opportunity to taste the best products: “It really stuck with me what good produce tasted like, that was a great school”. Later came training in Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine, which would end up shaping her vision: cuisine as medicine, food as balance. “Eating is the act we repeat most often in life. Depending on how we do it, we can nourish ourselves… or not”.
In 2015, she came to Ibiza for the first time, to work at Mezcalería Mexiterránea in Dalt Vila. Since then, the island has not ceased to inspire her. Here she works as a private chef, a way of working that allows her to cook calmly, from the roots, choosing each product, adapting the menu to the body and the seasons. She has worked in villas, boats, yachts and chalets in places as diverse as the Alps, Turkey and Greece. With her brand ‘D’instinto’ she organised various events such as Yoga & Brunch sessions and was chosen for a Schweppes spot that went around the world. But it is in Ibiza where she has found the ideal environment to display her most intimate, free and committed cuisine.
Lorena cooks with what is available. She doesn’t follow fixed recipes or combine according to trends. She knows how to improvise from instinct. She prefers local and seasonal produce, and avoids ultra-processed, frozen or industrial ingredients. She does not mix meat and fish, she does not use commercial preparations. She makes her own drinks: pineapple ferments, hibiscus juice, lemonade from plants she collects or grows. “In my culture we try to cure everything with plants. I use them in cooking, as a beneficial ingredient.”
In her kitchen there are no heavy dishes in the evening, no nonsensical extravagances. Every ingredient has a reason. Her approach is intuitive, but also technical and profound: she masters the alchemy of food, how it combines to promote digestion, energy or emotional state. So when she cooks for others, she lives it as a mission. “Recently, at an event I organised, one of the girls on my team was not feeling well. She was drinking the hibiscus infusion I had prepared and the next day she sent me a message thanking me for her full recovery. Food can help more than we think.
The link with her homeland is still strong. Every year she spends a few months in Colombia, where she gives workshops and accompanies community empowerment projects. She created the first organic and self-sustainable cocktail bar in the Pacific, with viche, a traditional sugar cane distillate with many healing properties, as its base. She also organises thanksgiving meals in Ibiza, where she always prepares a big sancocho to share with friends. “I like to nurture memories. Sometimes I cook very traditional dishes, although I adapt them to make them lighter. Because to feed is also to accompany the memory”.
Today Lorena Delgado is about to publish a very special project: a Gastronomic Dictionary of the Pacific, which will be published this year. A book that gathers ingredients, recipes, stories and traditional uses, as an act of love towards her culture. “It is a way of leaving a written memory. Everything is changing. My mother still scraped the coconut with a mollusc shell, and you hardly see that anymore”.
For her, cooking is an act of presence and also of celebration. An art that is shared with respect, joy and listening. While she cooks, Lorena thinks of flavours to be discovered, of dishes she has not yet created, of encounters that have not yet happened. She thinks of dinners with musicians, of experiences that cross cultures and senses, of spaces where food is a shared language. Because Lorena doesn’t cook just to nourish. She cooks to invoke beauty, to harmonise, to open a space of intimacy with the world and to make you feel alive.
