Pizzeria Majorana 🍕

Pizzeria Majorana is a small place on Carrer del Marquès de la Sènia, barely a hundred metres behind Palma's Passeig Marítim. Walk along the waterfront and you pass the street without noticing it — which suits the house exactly. No terrace with a harbour view, no menu boards in six languages out on the pavement. Instead a narrow room with a handful of tables, an oven where your pizza is topped in front of you, and a couple who run the place themselves. The operation is clearly built around takeaway. Many people order and wait the few minutes standing up, others have the pizza delivered, and anyone who wants to stay gets one of the few seats inside. The base is thin and worked by hand, and it comes in two sizes — the larger one turns out big enough to hang over the edge of the plate. The pizza menu at Pizzeria Majorana Tomato and mozzarella go on every pizza; that is written across the top of the menu, and everything else is built on it. The classics are all there: Margarita, Napoli with anchovies, Prosciutto, Diavola with spicy salami, Quattro Stagioni, Tonno and Quattro Formaggi. What stands out is how often mushrooms appear. They carry more lines of the menu than any other ingredient — as Funghi on its own, as Funghi Salamino with spicy salami, as Funghi Salsiccia, as Prosciutto e Funghi, paired with artichokes, on the Quattro Stagioni and inside the Calzone Markus. If this house has a signature, it runs through the mushroom. Alongside those sit combinations you will not find everywhere. The Italiana comes with serrano ham, rocket and fresh tomato; the Mallorca puts spicy salami together with goat's cheese and honey. There is gorgonzola with onion and gorgonzola with pear, a Brie Serrano, one with asparagus, one with sweetcorn and egg, and a vegetarian one with grilled vegetables. Two pizzas carry names from the house itself: the Rosana with cooked ham, spinach and egg — and the Majorana, with bacon, mushrooms, salami and hot green chillies. Made in house, beyond the pizza A board on the wall lists what else comes out of the kitchen, and the word casera appears twice on it: a lasagne bolognese and a vegetable lasagne, both made on the premises. The desserts continue in the same vein — tiramisù of their own making, a strawberry tart, and a dulce de leche tart you would not necessarily expect on an Italian pizzeria's menu. Who runs the counter The place is run by a couple, Emilio and Rosana. Their names are on a sign on the wall, and the handwritten board of house pizzas ends with a Buon Appetito. He is Italian, and the pizza is made accordingly — with no chain and no franchise concept behind it. The room is furnished as personally as that suggests. Framed prints in a cubist manner hang close together on the wall, with the menu boards in among them. This is not a designed interior but one that has grown over the years. Between the Passeig Marítim and Avinguda Joan Miró The corner Pizzeria Majorana sits in belongs to es Jonquet, on the edge of Son Armadans: the row of houses between the waterfront road and the climb up to El Terreno. Down at the water are the marinas and the Auditòrium; above, the Avinguda de Joan Miró starts off westwards. In between is a residential quarter that goes quiet in the evening as soon as you leave the promenade behind. For guests in the hotels along the waterfront the place is within walking distance; for everyone else it is the kind of address you hear about from locals rather than spot from the street.