Mallorca
- Jan 24
- 10 min read
Author and photos: Ming Taylor
Date: October 2021
Many of us crave a late summer, short getaway, desperate for the sun on our backs ahead of settling in for the British winter months of darkness and gloom. After travelling to Italy many times the past few years and having a whirlwind holiday in South of France in the summer, Mallorca seemed like a good fit for a quick 5 day sunny rendezvous.
After a thorough search on Instagram, one hotel in particular caught my eye. With draping trees, romantic corners for alfresco lounging and endless panoramic views, Ca’s Xorc is a four star hotel situated in the north west of the island in the popular town of Sóller, about 40 minutes from the main town of Palma. Close by you have Port de Sóller and Deià, all with charming cafes, restaurants and boutiques, frequented by fashionable locals and those in the know. The area has less tourists than Palma but will also require a car hire to get around with ease. Car hire is collected and returned at the airport carpark, so is an easy and painless process.
The hotel serves breakfast on the terrace outside with ravishing views of the Mallorca mountains, popular with cyclists, watch out for them on the windy roads. Lunch and dinner is served in their Mediterranean cave like antique oil mill with the option of ordering seafood paella, but request in advance. However, as foodies and loving exploring a new place to try lots of different foods, we only ate lunch at the hotel on arrival, a simple salad and angel hair pasta.
In the evening, I had already booked a dinner reservation at Casa Alvaro in Sóller. Bookings are definitely recommended as they are very popular and unlikely to have many tables for walk-ins. Tucked away on a side street near Soller’s Plaza Constitucio, the restaurant is unassuming but Chef Alvaro who hails from Barcelona lights up the historic city with gourmet tapas and mouth-watering paellas. The menu changes weekly, using local produce from Sóller and Mallorca. A few dishes to try include chorizo sausages, patatas bravas and garlic prawns cooked in white wine sauce. For the star of the show, call ahead to reserve your paella to share. Below is a black rice, seafood with mussels, squid, clams and big juicy red prawns for an amazing 16.50 euros to share between two to four people. If our stomachs were twice as large or we had a larger group, I would definitely recommend preordering the boneless suckling pig with crispy skin and leg of lamb which requires one day’s notice to the restaurant for 23.50 euros. Everything on this menu is cooked with love, authenticly Mallorcan and incredible value.
The next day, we ventured to Palma to explore the city. My worst nightmare is being lost in a new city with hundreds of great restaurants but no idea where to eat. Planning is my virtue and I had found a cafe within a trendy interiors and fashion boutique called Rialto Living. Café Rialto serves food and drinks all day with a beach house theme, palm trees and rattan wicker furniture and large marble pillars bathed in light from the huge roof light above.
Café Rialto, Palma
The menu is light and tasty using fresh produce for a prawn, avocado and strawberry salad with mixed nuts and pumpkin seeds. Why don’t we use strawberries in salads in the U.K? They add the perfect balance of sweet and acidity to the dish. The summer rolls were filled with sweet, fresh mango, prawns, salad and roe with a peanut dip. Give us anything with a peanut dip and it is heaven. Super refreshing and packed full of flavour. Some guests were ordering hot dishes like butter chicken curry and though there was major food envy, in my mind, I was saving myself for a post-lunch double scoop gelato.
Eagerly wandering around, we found RivaReno with a crowd of people outside and some mega flavours like ‘Caramello Croccante’ made with crunchy caramelised hazelnuts and decadent salted caramel. ‘Cremino Dark’ layers cream with dark chocolate, hazelnut butter and a pistachio swirl. ‘Sweet Alabama’ a luscious combination of chocolate and smooth, lightly salted peanut butter. ‘Cremino RivaReno’ is the top selling flavour, lusciously velvety and smooth, full of the taste of cream, white chocolate and hazelnut butter that is then finished with ribbons of chocolate-hazelnut Gianduia. You can see why they are rated the best gelato in Mallorca. Find their full list of flavours here, you can also find them in Italy, Miami, Australia and Malta.
For dinner, I booked a restaurant in Puerto Portals, 15 minutes from Palma serving Mediterranean seafood and pasta with a long wine list and harbour views. Ask to sit harbour side to watch the sunset but like most European cities, guests arrive around 8-9pm for dinner. Order a range of classic tapas dishes, runny gooey Spanish omelette is my absolute favourite and a big pet hate is when they serve it cold or solid, this was cooked with absolute mastery. Freshly fried calamari with lots of lemon, croquettes of Iberian ham or try Sobrasada black pig, baby squid or red prawn - wow. Of course they serve fresh paella, black rice, seafood, prawns, vegetables, a big range to choose from. Many dishes on the menu offer the option to have a half or full potion which is ideal for trying more variety on the menu, including fish soup “De Josefina” and seafood pastas. For the meat lovers, steak tartar with potatoes is the best selling or try the oxtail stew. The highlight of the meal is the acclaimed dessert that requires 30 minutes to prepare, fine apple tart with vanilla ice cream that is more like a very thin crispy, toffee like caramelised apple crepe. Don’t leave without trying it.
There are hundreds of boats moored along the port here and you can definitely feel the wealth. Have a walk along the harbour after dinner and you will find other restaurants that you may want to try, like Wellies, Ritzi, Diablito, etc.
On day three, we visited the municipality and small coastal village of Deià. Park where you can, there is a lot of traffic, cyclists and tourists that pass through so the carparks get very busy during peak hours. You can quickly walk through the village with restaurants on every corner offering hearty, home cooked food with welcoming hospitality.
Cafè sa Fonda has a large terrace with curtains to shade from the midday sun as well as availability for a walk-in table, fresh OJ and coffee. Food is more on the fast food burger side, so we left to find steps leading to Trattoria Italiana with a large terrace serving big salads which is just what we wanted. They get quite busy during lunchtime but we were able to get a table and the food was very humble but tasty. After looking on their Instagram, even Harry Styles paid a visit in 2019. We had planned to visit the luxurious Le Residencia Belmond Hotel just a few minutes away for the evening, but we enjoyed the food so much at Trattoria Italiana that we reserved a table for dinner as well.
If you have researched Mallorca even a little, you will likely recognise the citrus trees and ancient olive groves at Belmond Hotel, Le Residencia, perched at the very start of Deià. Though we didn’t stay here, we visited for an early evening drink at Café Miró which has live music daily from 7.30-11pm. Chill out on their comfy sofas with a cocktail in hand and watch the skies turn pink and orange over the Mediterranean sea. If you would like to have dinner here, then book El Olivio which is their fine dining restaurant with seating in the intimate and iconic courtyard between two old olive trees. Candlelight creates an enchanting ambience and sure to be a very special experience.
The risk of a late summer European holiday is the potential for a rainy day and unfortunately this came the day I had finally succeeded to get a reservation at Ca's Patró March, outside the village of Deià. If you read any TripAdvisor reviews, you will quickly learn it is challenging to get in during high season, so you take what you can get if there is availability. We arrived 45 minutes before our table booking at 1pm, reading nightmare stories about full car parks, no space on the roads and having to give up and turn around. If you are staying in the area, consider getting a taxi to avoid these issues but ask to be dropped close to the bottom, the walk down from the main road turning is about 1km and extremely steep. Just as we parked the car, the rain started. Note, the restaurant is still a further 5 minute walk away from the car park and bring change for the machine.
Unfortunately on this day, Ca's Patró March was a serious case of Instagram vs Reality. The original plan was to walk along the beach and explore the area before lunch but we could only go to the restaurant to shield from the rain. The sea was starting to aggressively hit against the shore and sitting on the outside no longer became enjoyable. We quickly asked for a table further inside to avoid getting splashed by rain and waves and many other guests soon followed. Fully booked and normally not an empty table in sight, guests arriving for walk-ins were able to wait a short while as diners did not stick around. A quick gambas pil pil and grilled calamari with chips later, we left.
On reflection, the restaurant is most definitely popular for their unique location, normally calm waters and access to the sea. The menu is expensive for simple grilled seafood, all with chips or rice, but you would normally accept the cost for the sights and experience.
On the last day, after a peaceful and slow morning having breakfast on the beautiful terrace at Ca’s Xorc, we checked out and made our way back to Palma for one last walk around.
We found an underground carpark near the centre of town, Aparcament del Mercat de l'Olivar with an indoor food market above called Mercat de l'Olivar. If only I had an empty suitcase to bring home all of the organic, fresh fruits and vegetables. With mangos so sweet you can smell them to pomegranates bigger than my hands. The market also home to a fish market with all sizes of prawns, salmon, clams, red tilapia, snapper, monkfish, blue fin tuna, the list is endless. Just around the corner are food stalls selling pintxos tapas, fresh oysters and sushi from the fish market. All fresh and made to order, this is my kind of food. Get in the queue and widen your elbows for a space by the bar, it gets busy during lunch time with tourists and locals all trying to shout over one another for more bread and wine.
Venture out of this hall and you will find other food stalls dotted around the market. Fresh pasta made on site by Bottega Bolognese, a small team headed by Bologna born Luca Gallini. Imagine perfect Italian pasta, tagliatelle, tortellini, agnolotti, lasagne just rolled and cut, made to order - there’s surely nothing that beats a simple bowl of ragu bolognese. Luca Gallini runs pasta making courses in Mallorca which seems a little ironic but could also be a brilliant experience for those of you who are pasta lovers.
One final double scoop of RivaReno gelato and we’re off to the airport to come home.
Five days eating our way through Mallorca, four days soaking up the sun, twice visiting the same restaurant and our final meal was an authentic bowl of Bologna pasta.
Some restaurants that were on my list but didn’t have the time to visit are below:
Cap Rocat hotel, hidden on a cliff in a peaceful pocket of Palma bay in a restored and modernised ancient fortress. This luxury hotel is one of the Mediterranean's most private and secluded resorts in a nature reserve. Dine at sea level in the Sea Club, an open-air restaurant by the waterfront in the Queen’s Cove.
Tahini restaurant in the heart of Puerto Portals, close to the seafront with contemporary art and an open kitchen where chefs prepare Japanese cuisine. They have a Japanese-style garden where guests can dine on sushi and sashimi as well as glass enclosed areas for more intimate dining. Some highlights include Miso soup with foie and truffle, sushi selection, caramelised tuna teriyaki with lime and noodles, chicken yakitori, teppanyaki, matcha tea cake with white chocolate.
View their menu here.
Tahini is part of the Cappuccino restaurant, bar and hotel group, find them mainly based in Mallorca but also Ibiza, Madrid, Marbella, Valencia and Gstaad. From a range of cafes in Palma, to seafront bar and restaurants in Puerto Portals, Andratx and Pollensa.
Hotel Cappuccino is a great option if you are looking to stay in the heart of Palma. With a rooftop pool, wellness spa, cinema, cafe and sushi restaurant. Available to book on all the major hotel websites.
Featured References:
Sóller
Hotel Ca’s Xorc; Crta. de Deia, Km. 56.1, 07100 Sóller - Mallorca, +34 971 63 82 80, casxorc.comCasa Alvaro; Vicario Pastor, 17. Sóller. Mallorca, +34 871 70 93 15, casalvaro.com
Palma
Café Rialto; Carrer de Sant Feliu, 3, 07012 Palma, Illes Balears, Spain, +34 971 71 33 31, rialtoliving.com/en/cafe
RivaReno; Plaça de la Llotja, 1, 07012 Palma, Illes Balears, Spain, +34971781829, rivareno.com/en
Car Park Aparcament del Mercat de l'Olivar; Plaça de l'Olivar, 07002 Palma, Illes Balears, SpainMercat de l'Olivar; Plaça de l'Olivar, 07002 Palma, Balearic Islands, Spain, +34 971 720 314, mercatolivar.com/en
Bottega Bolognese; Mercat de l'Olivar, Plaça de l'Olivar, 07002 Palma, Balearic Islands, Spain, +34 609 14 14 08, lucagallini.com/en
Cap Rocat; Ctra. d'enderrocat, s/n, 07609 Cala Blava-Llucmajor, Balearic Islands, Spain, +34 971 74 78 78, caprocat.com/en
Cappucino; Calle San Miguel, 53 Palma de Mallorca, Baleares España, +34 971 719 764, cappuccinograndcafe.es/en/mallorca/san-miguel
Hotel Cappuccino; Plaza de Cort , 07001 Palma de Mallorca, Spain, +34 871 03 74 37, hotelcappuccino.com
Puerto Portals
Flanigan; Local 16, 07181 Calvià, Illes Balears, Spain, +34 971 67 91 91, flanigan.es
Tahini; Puerto Portals, 2, Balearic Islands, Spain, tahinisushibar.com/es/restaurants/mallorca
Cafè sa Fonda; Carrer Arxiduc Luís Salvador, 5, 07179 Deià, Illes Balears, Spain, +34 971 63 63 93, safondadeia.com
Trattoria Italiana, Passatge Viña Vieja, n1, 07179 Deià, Illes Balears, Spain, +34 971 63 64 50, instagram.com/latrattoriadeia
Le Residencia Belmond Hotel; Carrer son Canals, 07179 Deià, Illes Balears, Spain, +34 971 63 90 11, belmond.com/hotels/europe/mallorca/deia/belmond-la-residencia
Ca's Patró March; Carrer Sa Cala, 16, 07179 Deià, Illes Balears, Spain, myrestoo.net
All photos by Ming Taylor, unless credited otherwise.
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