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braham Artigas never considered being a chef when he was young and getting started in life. While he enjoyed working in the kitchen with his mom and grandma, music was his passion and primary focus. A month before moving to Barcelona to start a new job as a sound engineer, however, he took a temporary job helping out in a friend’s restaurant to earn some extra money before leaving the island. That month changed his life, and he decided to stay on in Mallorca and become a chef instead. “My mom was not very happy with me”, Artigas laughs, “because she knows what a hard life being a chef can be. But eventually, she saw that I had discovered something that I love.” After working for a while at the restaurant, Artigas, who was born in Zaragoza but raised in Mallorca, went on to travel the world, working in Ibiza, London, Brazil, and Italy, the country where he feels most at home outside of Spain, and has spent a lot of time professionally and personally. In 2016, he came back to Mallorca to be the chef of Ponderosa Beach, helping to transform the classic Chiringuito into a destination-worthy restaurant. “We had great success, with people booking a year in advance”, Artigas explains. “Every Monday, restaurant-people from across the island would come and eat with us. It was a special place, sort of a Chriniguito 2.0; We had such a great time”.
