Namaste Indian Restaurant

If you have had a few days of fish, rice and mixed grills in Port d'Alcúdia, sooner or later you end up at Namaste Indian Restaurant. The house sits on Carrer dels Mariners, a narrow, low-traffic side street in the harbour quarter, a little way back from the promenade. What it cooks is what you may fairly expect of a good North Indian curry house: a clay oven, freshly ground spices, and a menu on which you decide for yourself how hot things get. The business now also presents itself as Namaste Himalaya and describes its cooking as Indian-Himalayan. On the plate that mostly means classic Indian curry foundations, with individual dishes worked expressly with Nepalese spices — the Pollo Tikka Chilli Masala with green chillies and spring onions among them. The interior is, as the house puts it itself, deliberately Indian. What comes out of the clay oven at Namaste The tandoor is the centre of the menu. Out of it come the boneless marinated Pollo Tikka, the shashlick skewers with pepper, tomato, onion and mushroom, the lamb tikka shashlick and the mixed tandoori platter that brings together chicken tikka, seekh kebab, lamb tikka, tandoori chicken and prawns. The breads are made there too: plain naan, garlic naan, cheese naan, the combination of both, the sweet Peshwari naan with coconut, almonds and raisins, and a vegan wholemeal roti. To start there are the usual suspects, but cleanly done: papadum with mint sauce, onion bhaji and vegetable pakora in a chickpea-flour batter, vegetable samosa, plus pakora of chicken or of fish, and the seekh kebab of lamb and chicken with onion, coriander, green pepper and chilli. The menu as a building set The structure is that of a curry house in the British tradition, and here that is an advantage: among the traditional dishes you choose the sauce first — curry, bhuna, jalfrezi, madras, vindaloo, dhansak, saag, korma or masala — and get it with the filling of your choice. If you like it mild, take the korma with almonds, coconut and cream; if you mean business, reach for madras or vindaloo, which the menu marks unmistakably as very hot. Alongside these sit sections of their own. The balti dishes come out of the heavy iron pan, with ginger, tomato, pepper, onion and freshly ground spices, seasoned medium or hot as you prefer. The karahi dishes work with a thicker spice mixture of onions, tomatoes and green pepper. The biryanis are prepared with basmati rice and finished with coriander, cucumber and lemon. Among the house specialities are butter chicken, a tikka masala with almonds and coconut, a jalfrezi of marinated chicken, a garlic curry with roasted garlic, and a dish worked with fresh mango and completed with cashews and fried onion. Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free The vegetarian section is not a token line. Aloo gobi of potato and cauliflower, saag aloo, saag paneer, panir masala, tarka dal, vegetable korma and vegetable masala stand on the menu as dishes in their own right. Several carry an explicit vegan variant, and to those are added a karahi run expressly as vegan and the vegan roti from the clay oven. For guests with coeliac disease, Namaste is a known address in the north of the island. Allergens are declared dish by dish on the house's own menu, and the staff will advise which of the items marked gluten-free genuinely suit coeliacs — the shared fryer being the limitation they point out themselves. If it affects you, say so when you order. Inside, outside and to take away You eat indoors with air conditioning or outside in front of the house, with table service and the option to reserve. Alcohol is served and the wifi is free. And if you would rather eat in the holiday apartment, you get the same menu for collection or through the house's delivery service.