Sa Foganya

Sa Foganya is a small, German-run restaurant in Colònia de Sant Jordi, and it is one of those addresses in Mallorca's far south where booking ahead is the sensible move. The house sits on Avinguda Primavera, in the middle of the village, a little back from the seafront. From the outside it is unremarkable. Inside it becomes clear very quickly that somebody here cooks with firm ideas. "Foganya" is the Mallorcan word for the hearth, the fireplace you cook on. What actually comes together in this kitchen, though, is not something the name gives away — and it is more than the size of the village would suggest. The base is Mediterranean, the hosts are German, and between the two sit individual plates from Italy, from Spain and from Asia. The menu is kept short. That is method rather than modesty: offer few dishes and you can master all of them. On top of that, the chef is also the owner — he does not only cook, he moves through the room, explains the plates and suggests the wine to go with them. The kitchen at Sa Foganya Mediterranean is the core, but it gets broken open in several places. The menu mixes the tried and tested with plates conceived far more freely, and it does so without the ambition to be everything at once. Italy supplies the burrata, served with pesto and roasted vegetables, and the pasta, which is taken seriously here: linguine in truffle cream alongside veal fillet is among the plates people talk about most, with spaghetti and penne with prawns beside it. Spain supplies Ibérico loin with goat's cheese and honey, aioli for the bread and crema catalana at the end. And then there are the excursions to Asia that you would not expect in a village this size: prawns in curry, and, with the lamb shoulder, a cauliflower that comes out of the oven under Asian spicing. A ceviche is there as a starter too. None of this is thrown together at random — they are individual, deliberately placed dishes inside an otherwise Mediterranean frame. What comes to the table For a smaller appetite there are tapas, bread with aioli, olives and bruschetta. Among the mains, meat plays a large part: beef tenderloin and ribeye are cooked precisely, and the level of doneness reaches the table the way you ordered it. The lamb shoulder arrives with rosemary potatoes and that same roasted cauliflower. Vegetarians are not fobbed off here. The most striking example is a cordon bleu made from aubergine, served on risotto — a main course meant as a main course, not a side plate with ambitions. Vegan and gluten-free requests are accommodated as well. Experienced guests like to pass on one piece of advice: ask about what is not written on the menu. The house regularly cooks outside the card, and the pasta suggestion of the evening is often part of it. To drink there are Mallorcan wines, among them a tannic red Syrah from the island. The team advises and keeps an attentive eye on the glass. The sangria has a reputation of its own among regulars. The room, the hosts and the atmosphere The restaurant is small, and that is deliberate. The interior is tasteful and restrained, with no decorative noise. Outside there is a small terrace. Because only a few tables stand in the room, the evening becomes more personal than it would in the large houses by the water — and that is exactly why a reservation is not a formality. The house is regularly fully booked. The service is the second reason guests come back. Dishes are explained rather than recited, recommendations are made without anything being pushed on you. On some evenings a guitarist plays, and dinner turns into a long evening. Around Colònia de Sant Jordi Colònia de Sant Jordi was a fishing village before tourism arrived, and its centre has kept more of that than many of the island's coastal towns. From the restaurant it is a few minutes to the harbour, where the boats leave for the Cabrera national park. The Llevant salt pans begin to the west, and beyond them lies Es Trenc, one of the few long sand beaches on Mallorca with no line of hotels behind it. The village fills up in summer and goes quiet again afterwards. Sa Foganya works in both rhythms — as a restaurant where you spend an evening, not as a stop between the beach and the hotel.