Maharani Indian Tandoori Restaurant

Maharani is the Indian house in the harbour of Port de Sóller: a family business on Carrer d'Antoni Montis, set back a little from the seafront promenade, run by a family from India who settled in the coastal town. Open the menu and you have understood the kitchen at once, because it is built as a grid. Along one axis sit the sauces whose names anyone who has ever eaten Indian food will know: Bhuna, Dopiaza, Dansak, Rogan Josh, Dahi, Palak, Jalfrezi, Madras, Vindaloo, Korma, Kashmiri, Pasanda, Masala, Balti. Along the other are the four things each of those sauces can be ordered with. Small chilli symbols behind the headings tell you in advance how hot it will be — the Vindaloo carries the most, the Korma none. If you want it milder or fiercer, you say so when you order; allergens are numbered on every dish. What sits on that second axis is the interesting part. Alongside chicken, black tiger prawn and beef, Maharani lists Majorcan lamb, spelled out on the Spanish card as cordero mallorquín. A curry house that buys its lamb on the island it cooks on is not a given in Mallorca, and the attitude runs through the whole card: the wine list sets Mallorcan bottles in red, white and rosé next to names from the Spanish mainland, and beside the Indian beers Cobra and Kingfisher stands a Mallorcan one. The kitchen at Maharani Above the grid lies a second layer, the chef's specialities. Almost all of them turn on chicken tikka, cooked in the clay oven and then finished in a sauce: with mango, fresh ginger and garlic, with spinach, in a karahi sauce, or as a balti with onions, tomatoes, cumin and fresh coriander. One dish carries the name of the house — the Agra Special Maharani, chicken breast marinated in yoghurt and masala, cooked with fresh tomatoes, ginger and onions, brought together with cream and scattered with cashew nuts and fried onion. The tandoor is visibly at work. The king prawns come marinated out of the clay oven, the chicken tikka tandoori arrives sizzling, and the seekh kebab of finely chopped lamb with onion, coriander, peppers and chilli cooks on a skewer over charcoal. Unusual for an Indian house is the fish section: Maharani works with haddock, once in a sauce of cream, almonds and capers garnished with coconut and pineapple, once out of the clay oven with a paprika sauce. Capers on an Indian card are a Mediterranean streak you rarely find. Vegetarian dishes, breads and rice The vegetarian section is not an appendix but a small menu of its own: aubergine in masala, chickpeas with ginger, garlic and tomato, Bombay potatoes, dal tarka, dal makhani, karahi vegetables with fresh coriander, and raita alongside. The cheese for it is made in the house. Palak panner is simply spinach with homemade panner, and the same cheese turns up again spiced hot or with peppers and tomato from the karahi. The breads come out of the tandoor: plain, with cheese, with garlic, with onion, with chilli, as a peshwari with coconut and almonds, or stuffed with potato. Beside them stands the bhatoora, a deep-fried wholemeal bread. The rice runs from plain basmati through pilau to coconut and lemon rice, and the biryanis are seasoned with saffron. Maharani and the harbour of Port de Sóller Outside there is a terrace where coffee is served too, inside a roomy dining room. Families are explicitly planned for: there is a children's menu of its own, with schnitzel and nuggets but also fried squid. Dessert stays Indian, with mango and pistachio ice cream and fried milk balls steeped in syrup, and a mango lassi to go with it. The second leg the house stands on is the trade out of the door. Orders are taken by phone and collected — for home, for a boat in the bay or for a picnic on the beach; larger celebrations are catered for as well. In a harbour town where many guests are out on the water or sitting in a holiday flat, that is an obvious service and still a rare one. At midday a set menu comes to the table on top of the card.