Sama Bar & Restaurante

Sama Bar & Restaurante sits in Port de Pollença on Carrer del Llevant, one street back from the Passeig d'Anglada Camarasa. It is under fifty metres to the seafront, and yet you are not sitting in the middle of the beach traffic. If you are looking for the place: it stands down at the harbour, not in the old town of Pollença. The two share a municipality and a postcode, but they lie a good six kilometres apart. The house calls its own cooking Mediterranean and Spanish, and the Spanish ground is unmistakable: gazpacho andaluz, pimientos de Padrón, homemade croquettes of meat or fish, pan casero with all i oli and olives. But the menu does not stop there. It reaches towards Asia regularly, and not as decoration at the edges — it does so in the middle of the main courses. The kitchen at Sama Bar & Restaurante The starters are where the character of the house reads fastest. The chopitos a la Andaluza arrive not on ordinary all i oli but on one made with black garlic — the same sauce, only deep dark and mildly sweet instead of sharp. The taco of Iberian pork is cooked at low temperature and served with pico de gallo, yoghurt sauce and cucumber. Alongside sit mussels a la marinera, cod fried in tempura with tartare sauce, gambones al ajillo the chef's way, and a gratinated scallop with fresh mushroom, prawn and Parmigiano Reggiano. The main courses show that things are actually cooked here, not merely assembled. The lamb shoulder is stuffed with quince paste and comes with a risotto of green asparagus. The Mallorcan lechona, the suckling pig, is filled with foie and truffle oil and rests on fresh mushrooms. The Iberian pork cheeks get mashed potato and shallots reduced in balsamic. On the fish side there is sea bass from the plancha, salmon with a herb crust on beetroot couscous, sole rolled around smoked salmon with cava, and cod under a Thai curry crust with basmati rice. Mediterranean with Asian swerves Read only the address and you would expect a harbour menu of fish, rice and pasta. That exists too: paccheri with tomato and burrata, tagliatelle with smoked salmon, spaghetti with prawns and fresh chilli, ravioli of ricotta and spinach. But right beside them stand Vietnamese rolls with prawns and vegetables, langostinos in a panko coat with Japanese mayonnaise and green chilli, a salmon tartare on wakame with avocado and wasabi mayonnaise, and a prawn-and-salmon burger that also works with wasabi. This double track is no slip; it runs through every section of the menu. Vegetarians get a section of their own rather than a token line: a vegetable ratatouille, a burger of vegetables and pulses with guacamole and vegan cheese, and a vegetable lasagne. The salads are more than a side dish too — one with goat's cheese, apple, walnuts and honey vinaigrette, one with tempura prawns, avocado and a Thai-style mango sauce. Anyone after something straightforward will find a smashburger with cheddar, bacon and onions caramelised in balsamic. Bar, terrace and the block behind the promenade Sama is expressly a bar as well, and the house itself makes a point of good wines and a terrace on which summer evenings can be stretched out. The wine list comes as its own booklet next to the food menu, and there is a children's menu too — a useful hint as to who actually sits here: families, groups of friends, larger tables. You book by phone or through the booking route on the venue's own website; for bigger parties that is the better idea. Around it lies one of the densest restaurant corners in Port de Pollença. In the same street and round the next one, tapas, pizza, Indian and Asian kitchens line up one after another, the Plaça Miquel Capllonch is a few steps to the west, and the water is straight ahead. Among all that, Sama is the house with the broadest menu: a Mediterranean base, Spanish classics, a visible Asian streak.