El Camino

El Camino sits on Carrer de Can Brondo, a narrow pedestrian lane in the middle of Palma, only a few steps off the Passeig des Born. From outside the place is easy to miss; inside, a long, narrow room runs back from the door, and almost everything in it is arranged around one thing: a long marble counter set directly in front of the open kitchen. The house sees itself as a tapas restaurant, not as a bar that serves small things on the side. The kitchen works with fresh, seasonal produce, and the menu is rewritten several times a year so it can take in ingredients that are only around for a few months. The first section is headed "Para picar poc a poc" — something to pick at, slowly. Poc a poc is an everyday Mallorcan phrase, and it describes fairly precisely how people eat here: several small plates one after another rather than working through a main course. If you want to come, book ahead. El Camino is one of those Palma addresses where little is left at short notice, and the house runs fixed sittings. The marble counter and the open kitchen The dining room is narrow and deep, and most of the seating is stools along the counter. Sitting there means watching the team work — the kitchen is open, with no wall between pan and guest. There are high tables for groups, and right at the back a private banquette table where up to eight people can squeeze in; it is the seat people ask for most often. The room has been built with care: marble on the counter, oak beneath it, tiles, warm light over the seats. The menu does not arrive in a folder but as a printed paper mat lying on the stone in front of you, with the suggestions of the day alongside. That sounds incidental, but it shapes the evening: you order in rounds, talk in between, and order again. What comes out of the kitchen at El Camino The card is Mediterranean at its base and reaches for Mallorcan produce. The opening run holds olives, almonds, bread and oil, tomato bread, pimientos de Padrón and Doña Tomasa anchovies. Among the cold cuts, acorn-fed Ibérico ham meets Mallorcan camaiot and fuet. Out of the fryer come ham croquettes, salt cod fritters and a courgette flower stuffed with goat's cheese. The tortilla exists in three readings — classic, with sobrassada, and with piquillo peppers and prawn — and it is one of the plates regulars order without asking. On the fish side, queen scallops, Bilbao-style sea bass, grilled octopus with mojo rojo, tuna tartare and a lemon tiradito sit next to each other. From the meat section come frit mallorquí, pluma ibérica, chicken thigh and a fillet of beef with café de Paris butter. The ending stays small: hazelnut and chocolate spheres with coffee, crema catalana, cheesecake, an apricot tart, ice cream and sorbet. The coffee is roasted on the island by Mistral Coffee, from pure Arabica beans of Brazilian origin. Wine from the island and the mainland The wine list is the second reason many people come back. Mallorca is strongly represented, and the house goes further than most: together with Bodega Armero i Adrover it produces two wines under its own name — a white from Prensal, Giró and Chardonnay and a red from Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah and Callet — plus a special bottling of pure Callet. Alongside them stand Mallorcan growers who take Callet seriously, and a selection from the Spanish mainland running from Rioja through Rueda and Bierzo to the Rías Baixas. Much of it can be had by the glass; the top of the list only by the bottle. Who is behind El Camino The place was founded by Eddie Hart, a Briton who helped build the Barrafina tapas bars and the restaurant Fino in London before moving to Mallorca — the island where his mother grew up and where he spent his childhood summers. He is not an owner on paper only: he is often in the room himself, greeting guests and pouring wine. Parts of the senior team worked at Barrafina before, and the rhythm of the service shows it. The business also includes a smaller sister house, El Caminito on Carrer de les Caputxines, which carries the same handwriting. When nothing is free at El Camino, the house points you there itself.