Celler La Parra

Celler La Parra has stood on Carrer de Joan XXIII in Port de Pollença since 1962, on the through road that links the harbour town with Pollença inland. Joan Gual opened the place back then; today it is run by the fourth generation of the same family. Eating here means eating Mallorcan — not as a concept, but because the house has never done anything else. In the north of the island that is less obvious than it sounds. Port de Pollença lives on tourism, and the streets around the harbour are full of kitchens from everywhere. Celler La Parra holds on to a menu you would sooner find in a village inn than in a resort: frit, arròs brut, porcella, tumbet, lamb liver, beef tongue with capers. The house says two things about how it works, and both are printed on the menu. Nothing is vacuum-packed, nothing pre-cooked. And wherever possible the dish goes through the wood-fired kitchen — "cocina de leña" sits as a line above the menu, in every language it has been translated into. Why the house is called a Celler On Mallorca a celler was the place where wine was made and sold. In the evenings the men brought their supper from home, sat down around the table known as the "taula dels embriacs" — the table of the drunks — drank the wine with it and talked. That explanation is printed on the first page of the restaurant's own menu, in five languages, and it explains where the name comes from. The dining room sits in a former celler, and the family has not cleared away the traces. The old casks in which the wine was made are still there, along with wineskins and other wine gear, tools and implements from the land, old photographs and objects from another era. The house calls its own dining room a museum. That is less an exaggeration than a description. The menu: frit, porcella and beef tongue The menu is long and old-fashioned in its layout: starters, tapes, rice dishes, eggs, meat, fish, desserts. Among the starters are dishes that have vanished from most menus on the island — grilled lamb liver Mallorcan style, beef tongue with capers from Llubí, pa amb oli also in a version with cuttlefish, plus stuffed aubergines and tumbet, both seasonal. Among the tapes the frit stands in three versions side by side: pork, lamb and octopus. Next to them pilotes, pica pica, callos and ensaladilla. The rice dishes all start at two people — paella mixta, paella vegetal, the paella cega with everything boned and shelled, arròs marinera and arròs brut as soupy rice, fideuà and seafood paella. For the two soupy rices the house asks to be told in advance. The meat section shows the character of the place most clearly: Mallorcan porcella from the oven, shoulder and leg of Mallorcan lamb, lamb chops, half a rabbit off the griddle. The beef tongue with Llubí capers turns up a second time here, now as a main course. The fish stays plain — bream, sea bass, griddled cuttlefish, cod with tomato or with allioli, turbot, salmon. The desserts are made in house and just as unfashionable: pijama, the house flan, a pudding made from ensaïmada, gató with ice cream, tarte Tatin, Cardenal de Lloseta from the Forn de Baix. The Grand Marnier soufflé and the flambéed bananas take two people and a little patience. The wood-fired kitchen The cocina de leña here is not decoration. It sits as a line above the menu and it decides how the roasts taste — porcella, lamb shoulder, chicken. Other houses put something like that on show as an attraction. Here it is simply the equipment that has been worked with for over sixty years. Berenar at Celler La Parra On Mallorca breakfast and the afternoon snack share one name: berenar. Celler La Parra makes its own offer of it — a tapa, a variat or a pa amb oli, with a drink and a coffee. For groups the house keeps a separate enquiry address, tables are booked through its own reservation system, and paella, porcella and lamb are available to take away. Gluten-free bread is on the menu, and allergen information is held for every dish.