Amayó Trattoria Pizzeria

Amayó Trattoria Pizzeria sits on a quiet side street in Palma's Arxiduc quarter, a few steps from the star-shaped square that almost nobody in the city calls by its official name: to everyone it is the Plaça de l'Obelisc. The house describes itself as a trattoria, and here that is not decoration. It is about handmade pasta, pizza from its own oven and a menu built for sharing. The kitchen calls itself home-style Italian and leans on two things: the tradition the recipes come from, and whatever the Mediterranean on its doorstep is giving. Fresh fish and seasonal vegetables therefore stand on equal footing with the classics. What comes to the table at Amayó Trattoria Pizzeria Pasta carries the menu, and it comes in many shapes: trofie the house way, gnocchi alla sorrentina, paccheri a la pescadora, tagliatelle with prawns and courgette, a classic lasagne, plus ravioli in two fillings — with ricotta and truffle, and in a Sicilian version with aubergine. The spaghetti carbonara is bound the traditional way with egg rather than cream. If you need to avoid gluten, the pennette comes in a gluten-free version. Alongside that sits a risotto section of its own, which is not a given in a house with a pizza oven: pumpkin with gorgonzola, parmesan with braised beef cheek, truffle with mushrooms, and a carbonara version with burrata and dried tomato. Among the starters you will find a few things that rarely share an Italian menu in Palma: provolone alla pizzaiola, a parmesana de berenjenas, vitello tonnato, crisp-fried cheese, and the nachos Amayó — strips of fried pizza dough that arrive with parmesan and a truffle cream. The tabla Amayó gathers several of them onto one order. The main courses carry on in the same unpretentious register: beef cheek, cod in the puttanesca style, gilt-head bream, grilled octopus and the albóndigas de la nonna, grandmother's meatballs. The pizza list The pizzas are split into two ranks. The classics carry the names you know — margherita, búfala, napoli, diavola, capricciosa, parma, tartufo. The specials are the more wilful part: bomba and amayó have a stuffed crust, one filled with aubergine cream, the other with cheese cream. Bacio and ripieno antojo are calzone variants, the fresca sits on a focaccia base, and the nallorca brings sobrassada and egg together — the Mallorcan ingredient on Italian dough. One house rule is stated plainly on the menu: no pizzas with extra toppings, and no half-and-half. That is not unfriendliness but the stance of a kitchen that considers its combinations finished. Sweets, wine and digestivi At the end comes the expected repertoire, properly executed: tiramisù, panna cotta, pistachio cheesecake, brownie with ice cream, strawberries with mascarpone, affogato. Two dessert pizzas, one with Nutella and one with pistachio, are the encore for tables that cannot decide. The wine list is split in two: Italian bottles such as falanghina, pinot grigio, aglianico and primitivo alongside Spanish verdejo, albariño, rioja and ribera, with lambrusco and prosecco as well. The digestivi are unambiguously Italian — amaro, fernet, averna, limoncello, sambuca — though Mallorcan hierbas keep their place too. A gluten-free beer is on the list as well. Courtyard and taking it home Amayó has no street terrace. What it has instead is a covered courtyard the house itself calls its porche interior — a sheltered spot that is worth more on a narrow side street than a few tables at the kerb. Vegetarian dishes run right through the menu, and vegan options are available too. For gluten-free guests there is one limit that Amayó names openly: the pasta can be ordered gluten-free, the pizza cannot. If you would rather eat at home, the food also leaves the house as delivery or takeaway; on weekdays there is a dish of the day as well.