El Molino

El Molino in Can Picafort is a grill house in the literal sense: whatever reaches the table here has spent time over wood embers first. The house has been grilling in Can Picafort since 1973, stands today on Carrer Badia, goes by Es Molí in Catalan — and in that time it has built a reputation that hangs on a single dish. The menu is short, and that is deliberate. A manageable row of dishes comes off the fire, plus the accompaniments that arrive with every order. Anyone looking for a wide choice is in the wrong place. Anyone who wants to know what a piece of meat can do when a house has spent half a century on almost nothing else is in the right one. The kitchen states its own case plainly: good quality meat, the right wood for the aroma, a seasoning mix of its own. There is not much more explanation than that, and not much more is needed. The rabbit is the reason Conejo a la brasa is what the menu calls it, conill is what locals say, and El Molino names the rabbit its star without any hedging. That is not a slogan but the thing the house is known for across the north of the island: crisp outside, juicy within, with the smoke of the wood carried into the meat. Rabbit is nothing exotic on Mallorca; it is country cooking. In the villages of the interior it has always been on the menu, along the coast it has grown rarer. Finding a house in a resort like Can Picafort that makes rabbit its main argument is therefore notable in itself — and the bet has paid off for decades. A short menu, all of it over fire Beside the rabbit the menu carries an entrecôte of Galician beef, beef fillet, pork fillet, pork chops, chicken off the embers and the chuletón, the big bone-in rib cut. Then the ensalada de la casa, the house salad. That is essentially the whole offer. Bread, salad, olives and homemade allioli come to the table with every order — the Mallorcan garlic and olive oil cream that no piece of meat here goes without. The seasoning is the house's own mix, and the wood for the embers is chosen for the aroma it is meant to pass into the meat: smoke is an ingredient here, not a side effect. Homemade desserts round the meal off. El Molino as a place: terrace, greenery and regulars When the weather allows, people eat outside. The terrace sits in greenery, and the house has furnished it with pieces of Mallorcan culture and history — a setting that looks more like a country inn than a holiday resort. El Molino is run as a family business, and that shapes the evening. Among residents the place is a fixture, locals and holidaymakers sit side by side, and on a good evening every table is taken. A reservation is worth making, especially the later it gets. Can Picafort, the bay and the hinterland Can Picafort belongs to the municipality of Santa Margalida and lies on the Bay of Alcúdia, between the s'Albufera nature park to the west and the Artà peninsula to the east. El Molino stands a few streets back from the beach, at the edge of town towards Son Bauló, where the building line thins out. That suits the house: it is not on the promenade but a little away from it — close enough for the walk after a day at the beach, far enough off to have its peace in the evening.