Sa Creperia Sa Bassa

Sa Creperia Sa Bassa sits in the centre of Manacor, a few steps from the square the house is named after. Sa Bassa is the big open square where the roads of the Llevant's largest town come together, and Carrer d'en Francesc Gomila branches straight off it. From the outside the place is unassuming, a narrow house with a few tables that move out onto the street in the evening. Inside, the idea is quickly told: this is about crêpes, savoury and sweet, and the menu that goes with them is unusually long. Anyone who knows French crêperies will recognise some of it and not the rest. Between the cheese and salmon fillings you find sobrassada with honey, piquillo peppers and artisan goat cheese, and right next to the crêpes the house serves pa amb oli. A crêperie with a Mallorcan accent, then, not a copy from Brittany. The savoury menu at Sa Creperia Sa Bassa The savoury crêpes fill a long page of their own, sorted by ingredient rather than by invented names. The kitchen's workhorse cheese is havarti, mild and good at melting, and it turns up in a dozen or so combinations: with cooked ham, with serrano, with tuna and oregano, with red Iberian chorizo. Alongside sit heavier things, roquefort on its own, roquefort with walnuts, four cheeses in one crêpe, house-made pâté, duck ham with brie. What stands out is how often spinach appears: with raisins and pine nuts, with roquefort and capers, with prawns and herbed cream cheese, with goat cheese. Then there is the fish line, salmon in half a dozen versions, anchovies with piquillo peppers, salt cod with tomato. Every savoury crêpe comes with herb oil, and if you like, the batter is made with wholemeal flour. Salads and pa amb oli The salads are not an afterthought here but a section of their own, a dozen or more entries, each with its own name. The quince salad combines apple, apricot and membrillo with pumpkin and sunflower seeds under a honey vinaigrette. The cheese salad brings five kinds together. There is a warm salad with bacon, dates and mustard vinaigrette, an endive salad with anchovies, a salt cod salad with capers and rock samphire, a lentil salad, one with mushrooms and one simply called Sa Bassa. Pa amb oli, the Mallorcan bread with tomato and oil, comes in many toppings, from cooked ham through cheese to the Marinero, which brings together salmon, anchovies, tuna, boquerones, salt cod and mojama. Pickles, rock samphire, capers and olives always come alongside. Sweet crêpes and house-made desserts The sweet side is at least as long as the savoury one. The house makes its jams in several kinds, blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, peach, bitter orange, apricot and, unusually, tomato. Then come chocolate combinations with banana or condensed milk, cinnamon with raisins, honey with lemon juice, fresh cheese with honey and walnuts. A few crêpes carry names of their own and are worth looking for on the menu: Cocoloco with coconut ice cream and mint, Entrenador with chocolate, banana and strawberry, Suzette with orange coulis, and Llucbelolma, a baked apple with cinnamon and orange liqueur. Among the desserts the house makes itself are cheese flan with honey and walnuts, tiramisù, a carrot cake under white chocolate, cheesecake, and mandarin and lemon sorbets. Eating gluten-free in Manacor Sa Creperia Sa Bassa is one of the better-known addresses on Mallorca for people with coeliac disease. Every crêpe can be ordered with gluten-free batter, sweet or savoury, and so can some of the desserts. That is not a footnote on the menu but a reason guests travel here from other parts of the island. Vegetarians eat well here too. The vegetable salad gathers asparagus, carrot, pepper, beetroot, sweetcorn, avocado and sprouts, while the cheese and spinach crêpes cover the savoury side. On the wine list Mallorcan bodegas clearly have the upper hand, which makes sense in Manacor: the town sits in the middle of the Pla i Llevant wine country.