GASTRONOMY
IF WE DON'T KNOW WHERE IT CAME FROM, WHAT IT ATE, HOW IT DIED OR WAS HARVESTED, WE PROBABLY AREN'T SERVING IT.
Our kitchen team are restless souls, and cannot be confined to a kitchen. Guests might find our team barbecuing on the beach, working the pizza oven in the garden or cooking up a paella over an open wood fire.
EXECUTIVE CHEF: PEDRO MOSQUEDA
Venezuelan born Executive Chef Pedro Mosqueda originally trained as architect, but after getting a taste of life in the kitchen in Caracas, his passion led him to Bogota to study Culinary Arts at the Gato Dumas Institute.
In Colombia, Pedro went on to train under Ivan Galofre, Harry Sasson and Nicolas De Zubiria before moving to New York to work with 3-star Michelin Chef Jean Georges at The Mark Hotel, with Galen Zamara (winner of the James Beard Award) at MAS Farmhouse and finally, with April Bloomfield at her Michelin-starred restaurant, The Breslin.
Here at Blue Apple Beach, Pedro - who has been a judge on Celebrity Masterchef - is committed to sharing his international training and experience with young cooks from vulnerable populations who might otherwise not have the opportunities he has enjoyed.
For some dishes, we keep our own livestock onsite and we do not support battery farming or mass produced and processed meat. If we don’t know how the animal lived and died, we no longer serve it. We currently do not serve beef for this reason. All other meats are ethically reared and slaughtered. Occasionally, the pork and goat served at Blue Apple is from our own livestock.
We only buy fish and seafood that is sustainably sourced and we do not serve any at-risk or endangered marine species. Sometimes this means the fish didn’t come from the ocean around Cartagena, where stocks are low and need to be conserved.
What we cannot produce, we buy from outstanding local suppliers because we believe in supporting local businesses. If our chickens can’t keep up with demand, we subsidise any shortfall with free range eggs from people we know. Fruits and vegetables are sourced as locally as possible, with the majority coming from the nearby Turbaco region. Wherever we can, we work with suppliers to remove single use plastic from their packaging.
Pedro is working towards being a waste free kitchen (hovering around 85% right now) and most kitchen waste is composted or fed to our livestock.