STEAKHOUSE TENNIS ES RANXO BO

Steakhouse Tennis Es Ranxo Bo sits in Cala Lliteres, the quiet strip between Cala Ratjada and the bay of Cala Agulla, and it is exactly what the name announces: a grill house on a tennis club. The approach leads away from the seafront promenade into a district of pines, holiday houses and sand courts. Anyone driving here for the first time checks the address twice on the way, and then finds a business the same family has run since 1969. Rustic and family-run is how the house describes itself, and both are true. The charcoal grill is the centre of things, and the meat and fish come off it. The menu is set in four languages: Catalan, Spanish, German and English run underneath each other on every line. That is not a marketing idea but a plain description of the people who have been sitting at these tables for decades. Off the charcoal grill The grill turns out Black Angus entrecôte and a rib-eye chop that the menu explicitly lists for two people. Fish stands alongside it on equal terms: hake with seafood heads the fish section. The lamb shoulder comes from the oven, and the menu gives roasts a small section of their own. Before that comes a short, very Spanish run of picades: bread with olives and all-i-oli, a plate of serrano ham, an assortment of cheeses, beef carpaccio, dates wrapped in bacon, Padrón peppers, prawns in garlic oil, squid rings in batter, spicy chorizo, patatas bravas. The salads are kept just as brief and carry Mallorcan names: trampó sits beside the mixed salad, and the bonança arrives with prawns and cocktail sauce. To order: the Mallorcan side of the menu More telling than any steak selection is the small section headed simply to order. It holds three dishes you rarely see printed in a holiday town. Conill amb ceba, rabbit in onion sauce. Llom amb col, pork loin in a cabbage wrap, a Mallorcan classic in which the loin is rolled into cabbage leaves and braised. And that large rib-eye chop for two. Those three lines explain the house better than any self-description. Order ahead and you get not the programme for people passing through, but what is cooked here when there is time for it. Tumbet is on the menu too, the island's layered vegetable bake, and children have a short page of their own with pasta, chicken cutlet and hamburger. A wine list that starts on the island The wine list reverses the usual order. Among the reds, Mallorca comes first and Ribera del Duero and Rioja only afterwards. Listed are Butibalausí in its organic version, Butxet, Ses Ferritjes, Ribas Mitja, Macià Batle, Son Prim, Obac and an Escrivà that the menu marks as a special edition for Artà. Artà lies a few kilometres inland. The whites and rosés repeat the pattern, and there is a separate card for the Mallorcan organic estate Ca'n Sort with Prensal Blanc, Viognier and the indigenous Giró Ros. The grape varieties that keep reappearing are Callet, Manto Negro, Fogoneu and Prensal. For a grill house on a holiday coast that is a statement: order a glass with your meat here and you will usually stay on the island. Steakhouse Tennis Es Ranxo Bo for tables and groups The house is set up for families and larger parties, and the location carries that. This is not a terrace in a pedestrian street but a club ground with space around it, quietly placed and free of through traffic. Booking is still advisable: word has got around, and the number of tables stays modest. If you are staying in Cala Ratjada you are not far away. Coming from Artà or Capdepera, take the road towards Cala Ratjada and turn off before the town in the direction of Cala Agulla. The nicest way to do it is to start the evening here and then walk the short way down to the bay.