Groenk Bistro & Grill Fornalutx

In the middle of Fornalutx, among stone houses and orange terraces high above the Sóller valley, everything at Groenk Bistro & Grill revolves around a charcoal grill. The village is regularly voted the prettiest in Spain, it has been honoured for its state of preservation for decades, and it sits in the middle of the Serra de Tramuntana. A grill house serving aged beef is not what you expect here. Behind Groenk are Emese Juhász and Balázs Turi, a Hungarian couple who traded their home country for the island. She looks after the guests — a linguist and economist with years of restaurant experience in Hungary — while he stands at the fire as the chef. The two have run the house in the village centre since 2024. The same owners have a second grill restaurant in the Tramuntana village of Deià, plus a pizza and pasta place in Sóller and the vegetable-led Urban Kitchen a few steps away in Fornalutx. The name is an invented word with no particular meaning, as Turi explains himself; the Nordic-looking spelling is misleading, and there is nothing Scandinavian on the menu. What counts is the fire. The Charcoal Grill and the Meat Cabinet You smell the grill the moment you step inside. Over the embers lie aged cuts of beef from Galicia and Iberian pork from Extremadura — two origins that stand for very good meat in Spain. Which piece it will be is your own decision: the staff walk you to the cabinet where the cuts are kept, from entrecôte and T-bone to chuletón, plus tenderloin and tartare. The dry-aged cuts are charged by weight and served with oven-baked potatoes, cream cheese and green salad. Even so, the best-known dish of the house is not a steak but the Iberian pork schnitzel: Viennese style with a panko crust, cut thicker than usual, with potato salad. Three burgers sit alongside it on the card — the house burger with aged beef, gorgonzola, spinach, homemade ketchup and onion jam, a crispy chicken burger, and one with pulled Iberian pork, jalapeño and barbecue sauce. The couple buy their meat directly from the producer wherever they can, and their fish and vegetables from suppliers on the island. Fish, Vegetables and Hungarian Traces As much fish as meat comes off the grill. Whole sea bass is the classic, alongside cod Mallorcan style with tomato jam, pine nuts, baby spinach and caramelised carrots, and octopus with romesco and Mallorcan potatoes. To start there is homemade aioli with sourdough bread and olives, Spanish tomato toast with smoked sardines, or honey-glazed carrots with ricotta cream. If you eat without meat you will find salads and vegetable plates; if you want it fully vegetable-led, the Urban Kitchen in the same village is the place. Tiramisu and crema catalana close the meal, both made in house. The owners' Hungarian background surfaces only now and then — goulash soup, chicken goulash or Hungarian pancakes turn up as dishes of the day. Roughly every other week the house puts on a themed evening: Hungarian nights as well as sushi nights or vegetarian and vegan menus. Groenk Fornalutx in the Village The premises were rebuilt from the ground up before the opening. Inside it is air-conditioned, with a large communal table in the middle where a whole group fits; outside is the terrace with a view of the mountains above the village. Children are expressly welcome and so are dogs, there are high chairs and a small card of their own, and you can take your food away. The house makes its own gin and a golden ale under its own name, and the coffee is a Colombian arabica. Tables are booked through the website. All year round and seven days a week — in the Sóller valley, where many kitchens stay cold in winter, that is the exception. A breakfast menu is served only at the sister house in Deià; in Fornalutx everything revolves around the grill.