It has been a week since we arrived home from Mallorca and the desire to jump straight back on a place hasn’t diminished one bit. Whilst we were on the island we spent most of the time on the eastern side of the island at the glorious Son Penya Hotel, but I don’t have much to share from that part of the trip because the hotel was effectively in the middle of nowhere, an oasis among olive groves and lemon trees. Instead, I thought I would share some of the spots we loved whilst we stayed in the capital, Palma. This was my first visit to Mallorca and so this is by no means a thorough list and is just a handful of places we really like during our visit.
For paid subscribers this week you can find the recipe for my birthday cake this year, a lemon and black sesame layer cake, and a guide to making the best possible genoise sponge.
For our brief stay in Palma, before we ventured east, we stayed at the perfect hideaway Posada Terra Santa. Slightly away from the touristy centre of the old town, hidden down a generic back street, this hotel welcomes you with a beautiful terracotta courtyard bathed in light. We were thrilled to get a room upgrade, which meant we were welcomed into a gloriously large room with its own courtyard terrace and accompanying hot tub. There is also a small restaurant in the hotel but we were too eager to explore Palma to try it, although breakfast in the hotel was great. There is also a small soaking pool on the beautiful rooftop terrace which would be a great oasis should you want to escape the busy city for a few hours.
As we checked in rather later in the day, we were hungry and so guided by our stomaches we headed out looking for tapas and vermouth. We wanted something fast and something delicious, and hopefully something not too far from our hotel. Thankfully the old town of Palma is relatively small and completely walkable, so after a short stroll we arrived at La Rosa Vermuteria. Clearly a popular spot, we had to queue for about 20 min for a table. The wait, and the day of travelling, may have made our eyes a little bigger than our stomachs; the waiter stopped me halfway into our order to, politely with only a hint of judgment, say we maybe had ordered enough food. After telling him not to worry, we’d been travelling all day, and we were hungry, we ordered a couple more dishes. Reader, it was an error, always listen to your waiters. Considering the prices, the portion size was surprisingly generous, so much so we actually cancelled the last two dishes although it was already too late to cancel the platter of fried delights we had ordered, which was what finally did us in. The food was pretty classic tapas, done really well and it was washed down beautifully with a couple glasses of white vermouth. Very chilled, great atmosphere and friendly service, a great welcome to Mallorca.
There is an unwritten rule that when you are on holiday the amount of ice cream and gelato that you are able to consume goes up exponentially. Gelato for breakfast? No problem. But, for some reason, this trip was rather short on frozen treats. Thankfully we made up for that on our last day on the island, when we headed back to Palma to catch our flight home. I was on the hunt for really good gelato and it was actually a little hard to find. There were plenty of spots that broke the rules I use to spot a good gelato place (gelato piled high, using unnatural-looking colours, and spots on the busiest streets) but we managed to find a gem in Gelato Claudio, an Italian run hole in the wall spot just a little away from the main streets of the old town. We also tried the lovely C’an Miquel which gave an old-school vibe, like the place had been serving up ice cream for many generations.
We loved this restaurant so much that we ended up going twice. The first visit was after we wandered past the restaurant looking for somewhere to eat, the long bar and the queue of people outside temped us in. The second visit was on my birthday, a quick dinner before we had to rush to the airport (to wait for our flight which was delayed by three hours). The restaurant is almost entirely one long bar, with a couple of traditional tables at the back, with the chefs preparing the dishes right in front of you. The service here was as slick as it comes, incredibly friendly, very knowledgeable, but also hands-off enough it didn’t feel like your conversation was constantly interrupted. The food is Mallorcan, so a mix of seafood and classic tapas. Everything was relatively simple, but the quality of everything shone through. Everything we had here was amazing but the made-to-order tortilla and the seafood dishes were especially good.
If you stay in Palma for any length of time you’ll likely spot the name Mistral in many a local coffee shop, it seemed to be the most popular coffee roastery locally. They have two locations you can visit, within a stones throw of each other. The roastery, which you can visit for a coffee, is hidden away behind Placa Mayor and the coffee shop is a few roads over next door to La Rosa Vermuteria. The coffee shop has a brunch menu and a few sweet items but it's really the coffee you’re coming for. The Surry Hills coffee shop also serves up coffee from Mistral and is another good spot for a coffee if you’re passing by.
Probably the most famous bakery in the city it was here I came to try Ensaimada, the classic Mallorcan pastry. Made with a dough that is stretched paper thin, almost like filo, it is then spread with lard or shortening and rolled up like a sausage. This dough is then formed into a spiral and baked before being generously dusted with icing sugar. The resulting pastry is both flaky and tender and very light. Alongside the traditional, you will often see versions made with chocolate, with apricots and with custard. I also spotted a few places making a version that had both apricot and sobrasada, the Mallorcan spicy spreadable sausage. I was really taken with Ensaimada so I will be attempting to make a version over the next few weeks.