Restaurants in Palma de Majorca

Surprisingly for an island, Mallorca’s most typical main dish is lomo, or pork loin. If you order lomo con col, the meat comes enveloped in cabbage leaves and topped with a sauce of tomatoes, grapes, pine nuts, and bay leaf.

The local version of sabrosada sausage is made with pork and red peppers. Paprika gives it its characteristic bright red color.

Sopas mallorquinas typically consist of mixed greens in soup flavored with olive oil and thickened with bread. When garbanzos (chickpeas) and meat are added, it becomes a meal in itself.

The best-known vegetable dish is el tumbet, a kind of cake with a layer of potato and another of lightly sautéed eggplant. Everything is covered with a tomato sauce and peppers, and then boiled for a while. Eggplant, often served stuffed with meat or fish, is one of the island's vegetable mainstays. Frito mallorquín might include anything but basically is a dish of fried onions and potatoes, mixed with red peppers, diced lamb liver, "lights" (lungs), and fennel. It's zesty, to say the least.

In the Balearic Islands, only Majorca produces wine, but this wine isn't exported. The red wine bottled around Felanitx and Binissalem adds Franja Roja and Viña Paumina to your wine list. Most of the wine, however, comes from mainland Spain. Café carajillo -- coffee with cognac -- is a Spanish specialty particularly enjoyed by Majorcans.