EATING OUT IN MALLORCA BESO BEACH PALMANOVA
Great food in a stylish setting by the sea
No hay verano sin beso! If you walk past Zel Hotel in Palmanova you cannot help but notice this intriguing phrase painted on the bench with some stunning views of Palmanova Bay as well and spelled out in neon light on the terrace of their Beso Beach restaurant. Mean
ing “There is no summer without a kiss”, as well as “There is no summer without Beso” (the place), these signs offer a perfect backdrop to countless Instagram photos and I cannot say that I did not take one myself at an opportune moment.
Last summer I had several good cocktails and countless coffees in the chilled out setting of Beso Beach chiringuito in front of the hotel – a joint venture of Rafael Nadal and Melia Group – but I had not eaten at the restaurant till a few weeks ago.
In fact, even that time, a friend and I came out for a couple of cocktails, but then spontaneously decided to order a few snacks as well. We started with some crusty sourdough bread, served warm, with homemade light and creamy alioli, green olives and the tiniest cornichons I have ever seen. We were going to share some tasty looking octopus, but before that got a couple of delicious, jamon croquetas, compliments of the chef. Croquetas seem to be such a simple snack, but when they are done as well as at Beso Beach, they feel like a real royalty of the Spanish cuisine.
As we enjoyed our drinks, we shared a generous portion of Josper cooked squid, parmentier and sobrasada. In case you are not familiar with Josper, it is an elegant combination of a grill and an oven in a single machine, highly rated by steak houses, brasseries, tapas bars, bistro-cafes, traditional restaurants and haute cuisine alike. It works 100% with charcoal, reaching high temperatures and getting the best out of high quality ingredients. In our case, the squid was slightly charred on the outside, but melt in your mouth soft and full of flavour I wasn’t sure what ‘parmentier’ meant, but a little research revealed that it essentially refers to anything creamy, this time potatoes that accompanied the squid. Curiously, the word comes from one man who championed the potato in France. An 18th century Frenchman Antoine-Augustine Parmentier managed to create a fashion from something which the French at the time had regarded “at best as animal food and at worst as poison”. A few dollops of a spicy sobrasada pure added an interesting contrast to this otherwise mild dish. We stopped ourselves short of licking the plate clean.
As we ended up chatting with Beso’s Food and Beverage Manager, he convinced us to try Chocolate Orgasm before we leave. This elaborate dessert consisted of a slice of a soft ganache cake, a scoop of vanilla ice cream on a bed of cookie crumbs, a chocolate sphere filled with passion fruit and a chocolate truffle, all together garnished with fresh berries. We absolutely loved the combination of flavours and textures and jokingly confirmed that it was 100% worthy of its name. As I am writing this column on my balcony, I see people swimming in the sea below by apartment. For some, the summer has already started. Let´s just hope that it doesn’t end, for any of us, without a kiss, at Beso Beach or otherwise.