The hotel and restaurant Valldemossa
Perched on a hilltop offering commanding views of the distant Bay of Palma and the picturesque town of Valldemossa – and with a backdrop of soaring mountains – is one of Mallorca’s most beautiful places to stay and to eat: the Valldemossa Hotel and Restaurant.
This former stately country home is protected by the tall cypress trees and handcrafted stone walls that form the boundary to the hotel. It’s an impressive sight as you drive up the lane towards the building. The journey from Palma takes around 20 minutes, but being here feels a world away from the bustling capital.
We visited the hotel on a Monday evening, expecting it to be quiet; to our surprise, the restaurant was full. With flickering candlelight both inside and out, the scene is set for a glamorous romantic dinner for two. But it’s not flashy glamour. Oh no. Classic elegance, superior quality and a high appreciation for all things traditional is how one can best describe the setting. This is, after all, a restaurant in which the heir to the Spanish throne, Prince Felipe, and his glamorous wife Princess Letizia have eaten.
We were shown to our table by the welcoming maître d’David Calvo, who invited us to enjoy the special menu prepared for our review, by the head chef, José Rodríguez.
Head chef Jose Rodriguez
The appetizer from the kitchen was a cream of beetroot with beetroot, pumpkin and apple balls on a base of soft cheese. It had a light, refreshing, slightly vinegary taste. Accompanying our starters was an assortment of home-made bread rolls served with olive oil – S’Ille from Alcúdia – and the Sri Lanka Flor de Sal. The wine was a light Mallorcan white, José Ferrer’s Blanc de Blancs from 2007.
The restaurant’s wine list has clearly been put together with thought and care, and there are more than 150 wines from which to choose. As well as those from Mallorca, there are choices from the different regions of Spain and it’s possible to discover some interesting but little-known wines here.
Monkfish, clams and snowpeas
For each course we were presented with two dishes. One starter was a suckling pig terrine with thin slices of sweet pineapple filled with local delicacy sobrassada. It was a wonderful combination of sweet and sour flavours. The other starter was a carpaccio of Sóller prawns with a watercress salad dressed with grape seed oil and topped with a parmesan crackle. The Sóller prawns unfortunately lost their distinctive taste and texture as they were literally drowning in the oil. And whilst the parmesan crackle tasted good, its flavour dominated those of the other ingredients on the plate.
The next course was foie gras – one was a roasted duck liver on a slice of melon topped with Sóller prawns in a passion fruit sauce. The other was a duck terrine with an apple chutney, balsamic and crystals of salt served with a bean sprout salad and decorated with colourful petals. The latter was the better of the two, with an excellent combination of flavours and textures.
Grapefruit Tubes
One of the fish dishes was monkfish, clams and snow peas, with an almond and pistachio sauce typical of Catalonia. The highlight of the evening was the other fish dish – a cod fillet cooked at 65 degrees, served with coconut foam, lychees and wild rice. Simply amazing. An innovative creation with the right balance.
The meat dishes were venison with juniper cream and red wine ice cream in thyme oil and, the other, a beef fillet with risotto.
One dessert was cottage cheese with lemon, cinnamon, eucalyptus honey, on a blueberry base; the other was grapefruit tubes filled with tiramisu cream, a cocoa ball, and coffee crisp.
The Valldemossa Restaurant offers top class food and warm, friendly service in an intimate romantic environment, with breathtaking views over the village. One can’t help but think that if the Valldemossa Hotel and Restaurant had existed in the late 1830s, the writer George Sand would have been reminded of the glamour of her life in Paris – and written a very different account of her winter in Mallorca!
Photos: Thomas Baar
