E Cosi

E Cosi is a grill house in Sa Pobla, and anyone reading the name for the first time may well guess at an Italian kitchen. It misleads. The full name of the place is È-Cosí Brases, and "brases" is the Mallorcan word for embers. That is what everything here turns on: meat and fish over open heat, and Mallorcan home cooking — the house itself calls it comida mallorquina de toda la vida, the food it has always made. The restaurant sits on Carrer Lluna in the middle of town, inside an old Mallorcan house. Stone walls and high ceilings have been kept, and the setting is rustic and unhurried. As an address for birthdays, for a long dinner with friends or for an occasion that needs time, the house is well established in the village. What goes over the embers at E Cosi The meat list is the core of the place. It runs to secreto of black pork, Chateaubriand, beef tenderloin and entrecôte, rib of beef in two sizes and a rib from the Rubia Gallega, along with T-bone, tomahawk, lamb chops and skewers of beef and of chicken. The decisive line is the one the menu prints underneath: all the meats served come from the house's own maturation chamber. The large rib of beef is served matured, and the house does not treat that as a footnote. Fish goes over the embers too — wild turbot, wild sea bass, bluefin tuna and cuttlefish. Sauces are offered for both fish and meat: cheese, green pepper, barbecue and béarnaise. The Mallorcan side of the menu Under "La nostra cuina" sits what separates E Cosi from a pure steakhouse. Escaldums of suckling pig and turkey, rabbit with onion and prawns, an old stew of chicken and pear, duck confit with caramelised apple and potato. On the fish side: cod gratin with prawns, egg and allioli, Menorcan-style cod with prunes, raisins and pine nuts, cuttlefish with sofrito, pine nuts and raisins, and lobster with fried eggs and potatoes. The starters hold the same level: a coca with Can Company chocolate sobrassada and Mahón cheese, vegetables with black pork, hand-caught squid with garlic, mussels, prawns and a cheese board. Tartare comes in three versions, of salmon, of bluefin tuna and of beef. Vegetarians and vegans find dishes marked as such, among them a courgette carpaccio and fried vegetables with seitan; gluten-free dishes are available too, and the staff will answer questions about allergens. Rice, fideus and arròs brut The rice dishes are made for two people upwards and show how far this menu reaches: mixed paella, seafood paella, a dry rice with cuttlefish, botifarró, apple and burrata, and a second with Iberian pork and seasonal mushrooms. Alongside them the arròs brut, one of those Mallorcan dishes a kitchen is measured against. And then there is an entry carrying the name of the town: fideus poblers amb anguiles, the noodles of the poblers, with eel. Anyone wanting to know what Sa Pobla tastes like orders exactly that. Sa Pobla, not the coast Sa Pobla lies on the flat northern plain of the island's interior, away from the water, and that shapes the business. This is not a beach place working on passing trade but a village restaurant. Reservations run through the house's own booking system or by telephone — and for the dishes that start at two people, that is the better route anyway.