Restaurant Peperoncino

Peperoncino sits on the Plaça de Sant Joan in the old centre of Son Servera, the square with the parish church, right in the pedestrian zone. Son Servera appears on no list of Mallorca's prettiest villages, and part of the appeal lies exactly there: two-storey sandstone houses with Mallorcan shutters, small bars with terraces, and a few minutes' walk away the Església Nova, the unfinished neo-Gothic church built by a disciple of Gaudí. The restaurant occupies an old Mallorcan house, and that shapes the front dining room. A Vespa hangs on the wall, which the house insists is roadworthy and properly insured, next to it Mallorcan hunting weapons, a Marilyn after Warhol, old bottles. This is the inventory of a family that has worked in hospitality for three generations, not off-the-shelf decoration. Giuseppe Carbonaro and the family behind Peperoncino Giuseppe Carbonaro runs the stove. He grew up between ovens and dishes in his parents' restaurant in Germany, where he learned early how a business is organised. With his wife Eni, herself the daughter of restaurateurs, and after spells in several restaurants in different places, he anchored himself here. Today he runs Peperoncino with his eldest son Gian Luca, who works in the dining room, and his team. With a beard, cap, tattooed forearms and heavy horn-rimmed glasses he looks more like a musician than a chef, and the house plays with that in its own marketing. Behind it stands craft: his cookbook “TUTTAVIA (trotzdem!)” collects a good sixty recipes between Italian-Asian crossover and Mediterranean tradition. It is on display in the restaurant, alongside Italian products to take home, and was published in German only. The menu: mozzarella bar, pasta and risotto The menu opens with a mozzarella bar: classica from cow's milk, bufala from buffalo milk, burrata, nodini as knotted buffalo mozzarella, smoked burratina, stracciatella, plus garnishes to combine such as grilled artichokes in olive oil, marinated cherry tomatoes with rocket or roasted peppers. Among the pasta you will find the spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino, the dish that gives the house its name. Alongside it carbonara originale, linguine alle vongole, ravioli al tartufo nero, tagliatelle al ginger with ginger, pine nuts and lime, pappardelle with salmon and orange, tagliolini with half a lobster in cognac sauce. Among the risottos the version with mango and prawns is the best known, creamy in the bind and with bite left in the rice. From oven and pan come focaccia on pizza dough, among others with burrata, the Iberian pork rib confited for eighteen hours at low temperature and glazed with barbecue sauce, turbot with lemon and black venere rice, or a whole gilthead bream baked in paper. The pizzas run from margherita to the zingara with spicy salami, capers and olives. To finish, house tiramisu, ricotta crostata or panna cotta with Baileys. Everything is cooked to order, which is why the house can work around intolerances; vegetarian dishes and gluten-free pasta are available too. Dining room, patio and roof terrace Behind the dining room opens an enclosed courtyard, covered, bright and heated in winter; stairs lead up to the roof terrace for the warm months, and in good weather there are tables in front of the house as well. The cellar carries Italian and Spanish bottles from the eminently drinkable to the fine end, along with sparkling wines. Peperoncino is well attended, so a table wants booking in advance, in high season several days ahead. Reservations run through the house's own booking system on its website. Spanish, German and English are spoken in the dining room, and Mallorquín is understood as well.