Madame Cabra Pizzería & Coffee Roastery

Neapolitan pizza from one of the island's biggest ovens

The dough is given forty-eight hours. Baking happens in an oven the house describes as one of the largest on Mallorca: more than two metres wide, with three rotating fire chambers. The menu calls the style pizza napolitana contemporánea, which means a thin, airy base, a rim with some chew, restrained toppings.

The list separates cleanly into pizzas with a tomato base and white pizzas without. On the tomato side you get, among others, Napoli with anchovies and capers, Parmigiana with aubergine and semi-dried tomato, and Francescana with serrano ham, buffalo mozzarella, parmesan and rocket. Without tomato there are Cuatro Quesos with gorgonzola, taleggio and smoked cheese, Mortadella y Burrata with pecorino, pistachio and lemon, Norcina with mushrooms, butifarra and truffle cream, and the house pizza Madame Cabra with semi-dried tomato, parmesan, pesto, pistachio and basil.

Vegetarian pizzas can be ordered with vegan mozzarella, and there is a gluten-free base. The menu says openly that the same oven and the same kitchen are used for everything, so complete freedom from gluten cannot be promised — a piece of information you rarely see printed that plainly.

The roastery in the house

The coffee does not come from a supplier but from a small roaster on site. Vincenzo roasts the beans himself; they go into the cup and can also be taken home whole. The coffee list is correspondingly long: cortado, café bombón, flat white, affogato, carajillo, café tónica, an espresso the house calls blooming, and a coffee aged in whisky barrels. Oat, soy, almond and lactose-free milk are available.

What else is on the menu

The ravioli section is unusually broad: beetroot with goat's cheese in a goat's cheese and orange sauce, asparagus with mascarpone, mushroom and ricotta with truffle, black ravioli with salmon, and lobster with ricotta. Alongside them sit tagliatelle bolognese with peas, puttanesca, and the tagliatelle Madame Cabra with semi-dried tomato, pistachio, burrata, parmesan and pesto.

The burgers are shaped by hand, with parmesan, pecorino, celery, leek and carrot worked into the meat. Then come focaccias with ricotta and ham or with mortadella and burrata, salads running from burrata with ramallet tomato to goat's cheese with fruit and nuts, and a row of panini.

Mornings have their own breakfast and brunch list: croissants, a caprese sandwich, muesli, homemade toast with tomato or avocado, pancakes. Vegan versions are provided for almost everywhere, right through to a Beyond Meat burger. At midday there is also a set menu of the day.

The people behind Madame Cabra

The house is run by Kathy and Vincenzo, a couple with back stories you would not expect behind a pizza counter. Kathy is a nutritionist from Australia and spent years working with hospital patients who had to learn to eat again after major surgery or during cancer treatment. Vincenzo holds a doctorate in engineering and physics and spent two decades in Berlin developing pacemakers.

Both lived in Germany for a long time before shared enthusiasms — good coffee, good food, triathlon, fishing and sun — brought them to Mallorca. Their own phrase for what they do here is unshowy: taking the time for simple things, for a proper meal and a good cup of coffee. For the ingredients, by their own account, they spent years driving around Europe.