Chef David Rivas – From the Venezuelan Caribbean to Mallorca

From Venezuelan Roots to Global Chef

Born in Margarita, an island in the Venezuelan Caribbean very similar to Mallorca, David was strongly influenced from an early age by television programmes, amateur chefs, and family members who already belonged to this world. He decided to become a chef.

After finishing his training at the Hoffman School of Hotel Management in Barcelona, he started his professional career. He has travelled the world, working as a chef in cities such as Barcelona, Oslo, and Hong Kong. This has allowed him to expand his creativity and become the chef he is today, with such a marked style.

Years later, in search of making his dream come true, he decided to come to Mallorca with his family, where he had the opportunity to open his own restaurant—where beauty is measured differently, and people feel at home, enjoying the experience of simplicity.

The Birth of Terrae: A Sustainable Restaurant in Mallorca

This is how Terrae was born.

Today, Terrae employs 7 people directly and indirectly, with a long way still to go.

It was a process of adaptation and learning for the whole team, and this is what characterises all of us who work at Terrae today. We all fulfil roles in which we did not have much prior experience, and we are constantly learning how to do it better.

Commitment to Local Produce and Sustainability

What characterises us is that we always work with local produce, trying to pollute as little as possible, making the most of each product with ingenuity and creativity. We share our knowledge on the web and social networks. There are no secrets—the more people adopt our way of working in harmony with the environment, the better.

One early challenge was frequent menu changes due to adapting to available products. In 2020, we switched from regular A4 paper of 80 grams per square metre to thinner 70-gram paper to reduce waste. However, this was not enough, so in 2021 we adopted 100% QR codes. Today, menu changes are updated directly in the file, which customers can download by scanning the QR code and accessing our website.

Another change was eliminating plastic for vacuum cooking. We stopped using those thick, single-use plastic bags that pollute so much—a key step towards becoming a 100% sustainable restaurant. Future plans include our own filtered water, ice cubes, and a vegetable garden on the terrace.

Today, we already offer our own wine and beer in collaboration with expert local producers. We create our own content for social networks, take our own photographs, and research and share sustainability tips for everyday life.

Sourcing Local and Maximising Resources

The Terrae concept can be applied anywhere in the world. The rule is simple: use LOCAL produce. We source most of our products at the Wednesday Market, where producers surprise us with fresh offerings. The rest we collect ourselves. On recent trips—visible on Instagram—we have gathered chard, asparagus, purslane, sea fennel, clover, nasturtium, chicory, mustard, radishes, and more.

The fish is always fresh from the fish market, and we buy whole animals from our organic producer. Purchasing whole animals obliges us to use 100% of it, fostering creativity and intelligence in processing. To be sustainable is not only to minimise waste and pollution but also to optimise resources (time, money, energy) for better results and doing more with less.

Today, Terrae seeks to be a benchmark for sustainability on the island—not only as a restaurant but as a concept. That is why we share our experiences and learnings on our networks.