A Bit of the History of Mallorca's Cuisine and
Some Recommended Mallorca Restaurants

Here are some links to follow for information you may find useful:

Scott’s Menu Decoder – Translations of common terms used on Spanish menus, click HERE.

Mallorca’s Annual Food Festival, click HERE.

For recommended Mallorca restaurants, click HERE.

HOW  MALLORCA’S CUISINE CAME TO BE …

If you look at the number of conquerors who have ruled Mallorca over the centuries, and the different cultures which have been introduced by them, it is fascinating to see the lingering influences of this cultural melange in the culinary repertory that exists on the island today.

In the tourist resorts around the coast, the food is required to be recognizably ‘International’, and can vary from the safe and simple ‘chicken and chips’ available in any beach restaurant, to high quality cuisine cooked by chefs who originate from all over the world.

In the centre of the island, away from the tourist areas, it is possible to sample the ‘real’ culinary legacy of Mallorca.

Authentic Mallorca restaurant food – genuine Mallorcan cuisine – is old fashioned robust peasant style cooking based on pork, lamb, vegetables, fish and pulses cooked in olive oil and homemade stocks, often using ground almonds as a thickener for soups, stews and sauces.

Almost any village restaurant offering a ‘Menu del Dia’ at lunchtime will be serving some dishes that have evolved over many centuries.

Look for such items as ‘Lomo con col’, which is pork loin wrapped in cabbage and stewed with pine nuts, or the various forms of ‘Frito’ a hearty fry-up usually made with peppers, potatoes and liver or other types of offal.

‘Lechona’, or suckling pig, a dish formerly reserved for celebrations, especially the harvest festivals, is usually roasted to crispy crackling perfection, and the lean, rich flavoured island lamb is made tender with long slow roasting, often still in old wood-fired bread ovens.

Tumbet is the Mallorquin version of ratatouille, with peppers, aubergine, tomatoes, onions and potatoes.

‘Sopas Mallorquinas’ is not actually a soup but a thrifty homey dish of wafer thin slices of local brown bread layered with whatever vegetables and meat might be available, the dish then topped up with a rich homemade stock and baked until the liquid is all absorbed. ‘Sopas’ is a reminder than in the old days bakeries only made bread every second or third day, so using leftover bread in this way avoided it going stale or and dry.

Other rustic pork products include the famous island ‘Sobrasada’ which is a soft paste of pork minced with red peppers, and the many various forms of local ‘Butiffaron’ sausages.

At the bakery, historical influences can easily be seen. Among the ‘Empanadas’, delicious small raised savoury pies, usually containing lamb, either with or without peas, and a tiny dollop of Sobrasada, you will see pastries shaped like an English ‘Cornish pasty’. These are called ‘Cocarois’ and the pastry is filled with a mixture of vegetables, raisins and pine nuts…an ancient Arab recipe almost unchanged from the middle ages.

Most Mallorcan pastry is made with lard, and the spiral shaped ‘Ensaimadas’ a particular excellent island specialty, are eaten for breakfast or dessert, either plain and dusted with a little sugar, or filled with quince or pumpkin preserves, or the extra delicious ‘brulee’ taste of a ‘Crema quemado’ toasted custard filling. Again the medieval is evident in locally favoured ‘Ensaimadas’ for celebrations which have slices of savoury ‘Sobrasada’ baked into the light whorl of the spiral, and always served drenched in powdered sugar.

An unusual beverage that you might try is the local ‘Horchata’, a form of almond milk, usually prepared fresh in bars and sold as a refreshing hot weather drink. Similar to it is ‘Leche preparada’, literally ‘prepared milk’.

Generally speaking, you will eat well on Mallorca wherever you go. The locals were brought up on a fairly narrow range of choices, but lovingly prepared by their mothers and grandmothers. A restaurant or bar – food is offered in a high proportion of bars – that doesn’t keep up to mother’s standards soon goes out of business.

Try any of the Mallorca specialties, you won't regret it. Paella is one of them.

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