El Pizzero

El Pizzero sits on a quiet side street in Ca'n Pastilla, a few steps back from the beach promenade of the Platja de Palma. It is one of those places where the menu tells you more than the sign does: go by the sign and you expect a pizzeria. Open the menu and you find a full Indian kitchen alongside it, plus Italian pasta, Spanish paellas and a wok section. That mix is not an accident, it is the principle of the house. On the Platja de Palma you rarely get four people at a table who all want the same thing — one wants a Margarita, another a curry, the child wants nuggets and chips, and somebody asks about paella. El Pizzero answers all four questions out of the same kitchen without letting any of them become a token gesture: the Indian section alone runs to more than a dozen curries. You can also order to take away, and the house delivers. Pizza, curry and paella on one menu The pizzas are the core, and the house is clear about how it makes them: the dough is worked by hand, the wheat flour is imported from Italy, and it goes together with Italian tomato, mozzarella and olive oil — oregano only if you want it. Every pizza leaves the pass in one single, generous format. The range runs from a plain Margarita and a Marinara through Quattro Stagioni, Capricciosa and the four-cheese version to combinations you will not find in Naples: a Pizza Kebab, a Pizza Barbacoa and, entirely in character for this house, a Pizza India. The Indian side stands as an equal next to it. Chicken curries come in practically every familiar form — Korma, Tikka Masala, Bhuna, Madras, Jalfrezi and the butter version — and the same breadth is repeated with lamb. It turns vegetarian with Dal Makhni made from black lentils, Palak Paneer, Sahi Paneer, Chana Masala from chickpeas and Rajma from red beans. Naan arrives plain, with garlic or with cheese, along with papadum, pakora and biryani. The Italian remainder of the menu is just as developed: Carbonara, Bolognese, Arrabbiata, pesto, lasagne, plus pasta with salmon or with prawns and rocket. And then the Spanish corner — paella vegetarian, mixed or with seafood, Pimientos de Padrón, a plate of Jamón Serrano, Gambas al Ajillo. Fish and meat have sections of their own: gilt-head bream, hake, salmon and calamari on one side, entrecôte, lamb chops, pork ribs and fillet on the other. What the kitchen at El Pizzero does The most ordered dishes are the four-meat pizza and the Carbonara, closely followed by the four-cheese pizza — an honest picture of what guests come here for. If you like heat, the relevant dishes are marked as such on the menu: Bhuna, Madras and Jalfrezi carry the flag just as the Diavola and the Pizza India do. What stands out is how precisely the house is tuned to its neighbourhood. Alongside the pork escalopes — with mushroom cream or with lemon — the tuna pizza carries the German spelling on the menu. That is not pandering, it is the handwriting of a place where German and Spanish eating habits have long sat side by side. Vegetarians get further here than in most houses of this size. There is not only the Pizza Vegetariana and a vegetable wok, but also paella and biryani without meat, a vegetarian lasagne, a vegetable burger and half the Indian menu. Ca'n Pastilla on the doorstep Ca'n Pastilla is the northern beginning of the Platja de Palma, where the long sandy beach starts and the small marina lies. El Pizzero sits one street back from the water, between residential buildings and the beach bars on the promenade: close enough that you are at the sea shortly after eating, far enough back that you are not paying for a front-row address. If you come by car, take the Ma-19 — Ca'n Pastilla is the first exit past Son Sant Joan airport. The district itself is small enough that you cover the rest on foot.