Bar Andaluz

Bar Andaluz sits in s'Arenal a few streets behind the beach promenade, on a narrow side street you would not walk down by accident. From the outside the place is easy to miss; it is not one of the venues along the Playa de Palma that court passing trade. People who come through the door usually already know why. Inside, the reputation explains itself quickly. The kitchen has been cooking here since 1985, and the Mallorca Zeitung lists Bar Andaluz among the addresses where islanders themselves go to eat. On this stretch of coast, otherwise known above all as the Ballermann, that is the exception rather than the rule. The house describes itself briefly and to the point: the speciality is mixed tapas. The name, though, is a little misleading. What is Andalusian here is mainly the sign — the kitchen calls itself Mediterranean and leans noticeably Mallorcan. Prawns from Sóller are on the menu, and at the end the hierbas, the island's herb liqueur, arrives at the table with the bill. The Andalusian trace turns up where you would most look for it, in the fryer: calamares a la andaluza, rolled in flour and briefly fried, are among the orders people come back for. What comes to the table at Bar Andaluz The place was founded by María and Miguel, and the basis of the cooking has stayed the same ever since: good ingredients, handled traditionally and in a Mediterranean way. The range of the menu runs from the ensaladilla, the Spanish potato salad, to fresh prawns charged by weight — you can eat very plainly here or go all out, and both are taken as a matter of course. The octopus from the plancha comes first, and the house puts it first itself. Alongside it run tapas and starters: olives, bread with aioli, prawns in garlic oil, a carpaccio mixto of salted and smoked fish. Order bigger and you find monkfish and hake among the fish, beef sirloin and suckling lamb chops among the meat. Wine goes with it, or a beer the house takes care to pour properly. A tight room at speed The dining room is small and narrow, the tables stand close together. Waiters move between them who keep track even at the busiest moment and set the plates down with a quick remark. The tapas come fresh from a tiny kitchen, and singing can sometimes be heard out of it — in the evening the operation works like well-practised chaos. Seats are scarce and mostly taken. Patience is therefore part of a visit: you wait until a table or a spot at the bar comes free. Those who stay get the hierbas at the end — not as special treatment for regulars, but for everyone. Bar Andaluz and the Playa de Palma s'Arenal is the eastern end of a long bay whose restaurant trade has been geared to German holiday guests for decades. The house stands squarely against that: a Spanish bar with a Spanish crowd, a few streets from the promenade and yet clearly outside its business. Nothing here is elegant, nothing is spectacular — the quality sits in the buying, not in the fittings. That is exactly what makes Bar Andaluz one of the addresses people pass on when someone asks where you can still eat Spanish food on the Playa de Palma.