Sooo, that bad is it? (cricket's sound in the background...)
Well, just an update. I have evaluated https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/client/php-api/current/index.html, which should be the low-level starting point to create a decent Laravel API.
So far, so good. The documentation is quite short, lack of good samples, but at least it works. I ended up with a recipy to make a very basic interface.
Let me know guys if you find something else. Regards