Manuel Echeverri

The Training The clearest thread in Echeverri’s cooking at the restaurant is not a named school or a public apprenticeship, but a working discipline: local produce arrives directly from farmers, and the menu follows the seasons closely. That approach gives the kitchen its shape. Rather than building dishes around technique-heavy elaboration, Echeverri leans on a small number of well-sourced ingredients, allowing the plate to stay close to the land and to the people who bring that land to the kitchen door. His earlier career includes service as chef de cuisine at The Surf Club Restaurant in Surfside, Florida. From there, his public culinary identity is now attached to Prats-de-Mollo-la-Preste, where the cooking is framed through Catalan Vallespir French bistro traditions.

The Lineage Lineage, in Echeverri’s case, is carried by place and practice. The tradition behind his current work is Catalan Vallespir French bistro cooking, a regional language shaped by the Vallespir and expressed through the ingredients, rhythms, and seasons around Prats-de-Mollo-la-Preste. That inheritance is not treated as ornament. It appears in the restraint of the kitchen: fewer ingredients, carefully sourced, cooked in a way that keeps attention on origin rather than display. Michelin recognized the restaurant with a Bib Gourmand in 2024 and again in 2025. Those awards place Echeverri’s work in a category defined by generosity and value, but the more intimate measure is the way the menu tracks local availability, following what farmers deliver rather than forcing the season to imitate another one.

The Table The signature dish most clearly associated with his kitchen is slow-roasted Catalan lamb in fresh herbs with seasonal vegetables and Pyrenean cheese, specifically called out by Michelin inspectors. The dish also explains the restaurant’s sense of hospitality. At Bellavista, the Executive Chef’s role is therefore more than a title; it is the daily act of receiving produce, editing the menu, and keeping the cooking close to its source. The story runs from Surfside to Prats-de-Mollo-la-Preste, but its center is the same practical question each season asks: what is ready now, and how little needs to be done to honor it?