Restaurante S'Hort Casino Mallorca

The kitchen at Restaurante S'Hort

The base is Mediterranean, the direction Mallorcan. Every recipe understands itself as a bow to the island's cooking, read afresh with today's means. Added to that is a strand you do not find everywhere on the island: Asian technique, used sparingly. A briefly flamed sardine on rice, raw tuna in a yakiniku sauce, citrus soy beside Mallorcan vegetables stand here without fuss next to the classics.

The menu is deliberately in motion. It grew out of a need for renewal, the chef says, and is being widened step by step with more modern combinations. Too radical a break would have alienated the regulars. So evolution rather than upheaval, with the roots left visible. Alongside it run changing dishes that never make it into print at all.

The island theme has a flip side that the house names openly: on an island the supply is limited, and much has to come from outside. All the more is made of what is here, and all the more important are suppliers you can trust.

What comes to the table

The Mallorcan side shows in dishes everyone on the island knows: cuttlefish with onions in the Mallorcan manner, a Mallorcan taco of coca de trampó and bonito, bacallà a la mallorquina with a sofrito of roasted vegetables, canelons with beef and pine nuts. And to finish, the island classics: the almond cake gató with almond ice cream, or an ensaimada with ice cream.

The other side is more contemporary. Croquettes of Ibérico ham with tomato jam and truffled mayonnaise, tartare of bluefin tuna, rack of lamb cooked at low temperature on celeriac cream, beef fillet with pepper sauce, a mushroom risotto with truffle and parmesan. Among the desserts, a Basque cheesecake made with raw-milk Mahón stands beside grilled pineapple on coconut cream.

One thread runs through much of it: the potato. The chef calls it the one product he would build a dish around. Humble, adaptable, from creamy to crisp, and from here. Accordingly it turns up in several dishes, for instance as a Mallorcan potato confited in Provençal herbs.

The chef and his signature

Miguel Ángel Mejías runs the kitchen. He came to the trade early and by accident: as a child he waited out the afternoons in the hotel where his mother worked as a kitchen assistant, watching the cooks. At seventeen he started as a kitchen assistant himself; training came later, and work alongside well-known chefs.

A journey through Asia left its mark. Mediterranean cooking has remained his base, he says, but confining yourself to a single cuisine is like cooking blindfolded. That attitude is exactly why a tataki turns up unannounced on a Mallorcan menu.

Atmosphere and occasions

The dining room is kept warm and well tended, the service close and professional. That suits a meal for two as much as a larger table. Company dinners and private celebrations are expressly catered for, and on some evenings a DJ plays through dinner, which makes a visit more of a long evening than a quick meal.

A cocktail and snack bar belongs to the same house, should you want to stay on before or after eating. If you want to eat classically Mallorcan and still see something unfamiliar on the plate, S'Hort is the right address.