Restaurante Asador BOLIXE Cocina Esencial

Restaurante Asador BOLIXE Cocina Esencial sits a few hundred metres north of Plaça d'Espanya, on Carrer d'Eusebi Estada, opposite the Parc de les Estacions. You come here for the fire. Leo von Notz has run the house since 2004. He is Argentinian; his parents had gone from Germany to Argentina, he himself came to Mallorca via Málaga, met his wife here and stayed. Asador means grill house, and BOLIXE takes the word literally. Alongside the kitchen, von Notz has a second career in professional grilling: he was resident chef for Weber Ibérica and works as a certified consultant and instructor for Josper, Kamado Monolith, Broil King and Weber. The kitchen accordingly runs several kinds of fire side by side — the open parrilla, a Josper charcoal oven, a Japanese kamado for smoking. Every cut gets the fire that suits it. The menu carries a photograph of every dish — useful if your Spanish does not stretch to choosing between entraña and bondiola. The parrilla at Asador BOLIXE: cuts from three countries The meat list is ordered by origin and cut. Argentinian classics stand under their own names: ojo de bife, entrecôte from Argentinian novillo, entraña, and a filete Nueva York that comes off the embers with confit onion, rosemary and pepper. From Iberian pork there is lomo alto from the Dehesa de Extremadura and bondiola; from beef, picanha of Hereford and Angus, solomillo and a chuletón from Irish grass-fed cattle, dry aged and on the bone. The more interesting plates come out for two. The porterhouse, from Simmenthal cattle, arrives carved, fillet and sirloin on the T-bone. The parrillada gathers lomo bajo, picanha, entraña, ibérico, chorizo criollo and onion blood sausage in one round. And the Cortes Bolixe Tres Naciones is exactly what the name promises: picanha from Ireland, Iberian lomo alto from Spain, Argentinian filete Nueva York, with home-cut fried potatoes, peppers and confit garlic. Beside it lies a chuletón from Galician Frisona cattle, aged more than nine weeks, for anyone who would rather taste a single piece in its full depth. What else comes off the embers The starters are where the Argentinian craft shows fastest. Empanaditas criollas are filled in house and fried only once ordered; chorizo criollo and mollejas — veal sweetbreads — come off the embers, with chimichurri on request. The onion morcilla cooks in the Josper, the Mallorcan butifarrón is gently smoked in the kamado, and village sobrassada arrives with focaccia off the parrilla. Then the house classics: jamón ibérico from Guijuelo, cured ox cecina carrying the León mark of origin, croquetitas of Iberian ham, and Mallorcan pulpito with smoked country potato. A whole section of the menu does without meat: seasonal dressed tomatoes with red onion and three peppers, Catalan escalivada out of the ashes, a salad of roasted piquillo peppers with capers and a classic vinaigrette, crisp bocaditos filled with spinach and prunes that manage without gluten and without lactose. For the rest of the menu the house keeps a separate gluten-free version. Anyone skipping meat altogether takes the fresh sorrentinos with ricotta, pine nuts and spinach, baked with reduced tomato and fresh basil. Desserts, wine and the shop next door The dessert list is longer than in most grill houses and mixes Argentina with Mallorca. The panqueque argentino is filled with dulce de leche and glazed with burnt sugar, the rustic bread pudding is a house recipe. From the island come gató amb gelat with Mallorcan almonds, menjar blanc with palo — and an ensaïmada that, of course, goes over the embers. Even the apple is grilled, with nuts and vanilla ice cream. The wine list has four centres of gravity: Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Mallorcan houses such as Bodegas Ribas and Macià Batle, and the Andes, where Malbec and Argentinian blends belong to the meat the way chimichurri does. Bottles leave the house too, because BOLIXE is also a barbecue shop: wine, gourmet products and grills are all on the shelves, and von Notz teaches on precisely the equipment he consults for. The house was also among the first restaurants in Spain to accept payment in cryptocurrency.