Restaurante I D I L I O - COCINA Y VINO

Idilio Cocina y Vino sits on a narrow residential street in the north of Palma, in the quarter around the Arxiduc, and takes its name literally: kitchen and wine in equal parts, neither one a side act. The house has been open since 2024. Behind it are two childhood friends, chef Ricardo Navarro and sommelier Alejandro Vivas, who gave their place a motto of their own: "hedonismo de barrio", neighbourhood hedonism. The phrase is not decoration, it is the basis of the business. Idilio is not meant as a special-occasion restaurant but as the one neighbours and fellow cooks walk into for no reason at all. The room is small and the menu short, and both are deliberate: the owners work the floor themselves, explaining the plates and suggesting the bottle to go with them. The kitchen at Idilio: embers, smoke and plates to share Ricardo Navarro trained at the Basque Culinary Center and worked in Madrid, Ibiza and Andalusia before settling on Mallorca. His menu reads like a collection of Spanish classics someone has taken apart and put back together: Milhojas de Patatas Bravas instead of the usual diced bravas, Berenjena al Fuego, Ensalada de Tomate and Alcachofa a la Brasa straight off the fire, Mollejas de Ternera, a crisp torrezno of pig's ear, Saam de Langostinos, red tuna tartare, Calamar Ajilimójili — and a mini hot dog on a skewer that inoculates the whole menu against solemnity. The signature here is the ember. Meat is smoked and prepared over five days before it reaches the table, and then it is not portioned out but planted in the middle as the Torre de Pastrami: a tower of slices ringed by sauces, salad, bread and gherkins. That dish shows how food is thought about here — everyone reaches in, every plate belongs to the table. The wine: the second half of the name Alejandro Vivas runs the floor and the wine list; before this he was a sommelier at the houses of Marc Fosh and Martín Berasategui. He looks for wines that are fresh, carry acidity and are worked with ecological care, and he keeps the selection deliberately short rather than encyclopaedic. Alongside the Spanish bottles, Mallorca appears in depth: ask about the island's own grapes and you get Callet, Gorgollassa and Escursac explained and poured — varieties long dismissed as rustic that now count among the most interesting from here. That list earned Idilio a Silver Star at Star Wine List of the Year Spain in the category for short wine lists, alongside addresses in Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao and Pamplona. For a room this size, that is remarkable company. Hedonismo de Barrio: the room, the quarter, the booking The place lies north of the old town, in an area on nobody's sightseeing list where several wine addresses have gathered — there is a second one on the same street. The room holds only a handful of tables; turn up unannounced and you will usually find them taken, and booking runs through the house's own website. Access is step-free. On price, the two owners put it best themselves: they are after an extraordinary ratio of quality, pleasure and cost, one the neighbourhood and their own colleagues can afford. Coming up from the centre, you find less an outing than a place where you end up staying put.