Les Artistes y más

Les Artistes y más is a French bistro in the middle of Palma, right across from the Mercat de l'Olivar. Come out of the market, walk a few steps, and you are on the small Plaça del Comtat del Rosselló — and then, inside, in front of onion soup, bœuf bourguignon and crêpes Suzette, as though someone had carried a Parisian corner bistro straight across the Mediterranean. Two Frenchmen with very different trades stand behind the place. Alain Azelart, a Parisian, began his apprenticeship at fifteen and later worked his way through the kitchens of Asia, Morocco and Scandinavia. What is cooked here is nonetheless exclusively French, and with a certain stubbornness: people at this address ask often enough for bocadillos or spaghetti bolognese, and they are not on the menu. His partner Thierry Mathieu comes at it from the other side — art school from childhood, later fresco restoration on historic buildings, monumental trompe-l'œil painting, theatre scenery, gold leaf. The name of the house means both trades: it is meant to be more than a meal and more than a picture. What is on the menu at Les Artistes y más The menu is short and stays with the canon. Among the starters are foie gras in a house terrine with toasted brioche and fig jam, Burgundy snails with butter, garlic and parsley, gratinated onion soup with Emmental, oven-baked camembert with walnuts, almonds, thyme and honey, a terrine de campagne, and pistachio sausage from Lyon with parsley potatoes. The star is the bœuf bourguignon. It stays on the menu all year, is built from three different cuts of beef and keeps Azelart busy over three days: marinating, starting the sauce, braising. Alongside it are steak tartare in the French manner, pike quenelles with Nantua sauce, confit duck leg, a rack of lamb in a herb crust with potato gratin, duck breast with red fruits and cod loin grenobloise. To finish: profiteroles with hot chocolate, crêpes Suzette flambéed with Grand Marnier, crème brûlée with tonka bean, île flottante with pink pralines, and a tarte Tatin. The market at the door, the wines from France A good part of the produce comes from across the way: Azelart walks the Olivar himself, picks things out, lets the stalls give him ideas. Individual ingredients he brings in directly from France. The wine list stays consistently at home — Côtes du Rhône, Bordeaux, white Burgundy, Chablis, Muscadet sur lie, rosé from Provence, and champagne. It fits the rest: what you get here is not a Mediterranean reading of the French classics but the classics themselves. The dining room on the Comtat del Rosselló The room is small and warm: bare marès stone walls, red-and-white checked tablecloths, framed pictures and old French posters on the walls, French music with it. A few tables stand outside on the square. Because the place has few seats and is well attended, a reservation is worth making — the house takes none by email, but does take them by telephone and through its own booking system. For a birthday, a meeting or a themed dinner, the room can also be hired in full. You can eat vegetarian here, though not lavishly: baked and fried camembert, Raviole du Dauphiné with rocket, tomato, walnut and radish, the selection of cheeses from French regions, and the desserts. The rest of the menu runs on meat and fish, and the house makes no secret of it.