Meson Español

Mesón Español sits on Avinguda Magaluf, a few steps from the bay, and turns a place many people file away as a party strip back into a Spanish address for an evening. The house describes its own cooking as traditional Spanish with a fusion streak: the classics as you know them, and beside them dishes allowed to break out of the tradition. Work through the menu and you quickly see where this is going. The full Spanish baseline is there, tortilla, padrón peppers, gambas al ajillo, croquetas and patatas bravas, and next to it things that had no business on a classic mesón menu for a long time: a poke bowl with wakame and edamame, a bluefin tuna tataki on seaweed, a bluefin tuna tartare with avocado, mango and ginger. The breadth is deliberate. Burgers and bocatas stand alongside the parrillada, there is a children's menu of its own, and the house calls itself a place for families and groups. This is not gourmet etiquette, it is a neighbourhood kitchen that has to work in a holiday resort. The kitchen at Mesón Español The house describes itself briefly and rather accurately: it works out of respect for Spanish cooking as it has always been, and reinterprets it with contemporary techniques and an international touch. On the menu that means the classics are left alone and the outliers get room beside them rather than pushing them out. With fish this shows most clearly. There is the fritura with boquerones, prawns, calamares and chipirones, pulpo a la gallega, sardines from the plancha, zamburiñas and French oysters, and on the same page a lubina that comes out of the oven Mallorcan-style, plus a parrillada of fish and seafood, mussels a la marinera and a sopa de pescado y marisco. Arroces: seven ways with rice The rice section is the part of the menu where the house holds back least. Seven preparations stand side by side: paella with fish and seafood, paella mixta of chicken and seafood, paella ciega, a fideuá with fish and seafood, arroz negro with squid ink, a vegetable paella and an arroz caldoso a la marinera. The paella ciega is the most interesting statement of the lot. Ciega means blind: everything is peeled, boned and shelled, so nothing has to be taken apart at the table. It is the version for anyone who wants the rice and not the work. That a pure vegetable paella stands beside it says something about the house too. Vegetarian cooking is not an appendix here, it has its own entry in the core section. Tapas, raciones and the Mallorcan share The tapas list is the longest the house has and can be ordered in tapa or ración size. Beside the expected, jamón serrano, manchego, chorizo, salchichón, boquerones in vinegar, calamar andaluz, albóndigas and ensaladilla rusa, stand the Mallorcan entries you do not find on a generic resort menu: coca trampó and a house coca mesón with escalivada, sobrassada, goat cheese and honey. The tabla ibérica, too, is put together more carefully than it would have to be: jamón serrano, chorizo, salchichón, Mallorcan sobrassada and manchego, with pan de cristal and tomato. Anyone who would rather eat across the menu takes the surtido de tapas with boquerones, jamón, croquetas, manchego and padrón peppers. The desserts follow the same logic: tiramisú, crema catalana and cheesecake stand next to a vegan panna cotta made with coconut milk and a gató de almendra, the Mallorcan almond cake. Magaluf rather than Calvià, where the house stands Many directories give the town as Calvià, and that is only half the truth. Calvià is the municipality; the village of the same name lies a good seven kilometres inland. Mesón Español stands in Magaluf, on the avinguda that runs down to the bay, and the house itself speaks of the heart of Magaluf. For getting there that is the decisive difference. Magaluf and neighbouring Palmanova form one continuous coastal strip a good twelve kilometres west of Palma; drive to the village of Calvià and you end up in the hills behind. Shops, hotels and a shopping centre line the avinguda, and the sea is within walking distance of the door.