The best restaurant on the island.

[alcanadakid]

On Saturday it was a special occasion so we went to the Jardin restaurant in Alcudia. It has always been very good but this year they seem to have raised their game. It is nouveux cuisine and very adventureous. No a La carte, just one gastronomique menu of 11 courses, all beautifully presented and small portions. The menu was so special I need to share it with you and it goes as follows:-

1. Ajoblanco soup with anchovy and grape ( cold and served in a glass)
2 Battered and fried sea anemone
3. Small can of whitebait in vinegar ( the can is a very clever dish made to look like a sardine can)
4. Sea urchin pie with citrus jelly and egg yolk
5. Prawn with Iberian pork ( absolutely fabulous)
6. Jig-caught squid with creamy potato puree and citrus fruits
7. Grilled amberjack with a touch of carrot and vegetables
8. Roast lamb with a caulifower and almond sautee
9. Strawberries with dry and aromatic herbs
10. Cheese board from the Balearic Islands
11. Cheesecake with dried apricots

If you don't like a course they will substitute something else of equal quality. You are given a copy of the menu as a souvenir which why I seem to have a good memory! Apparently the menu changes every two weeks.

Sometimes menus sound much nicer than they taste but in this case it was as good as it sounds and all the courses complimented each other.

Service and ambience match the menu - fabulous.

As you might expect it is not cheap, the set meal is €60 and for the two of us with two glasses of Cava, a bottle of red, water and coffee the total was €177. For a special occasion it is perfect

In my opinion it is the best restaurant on the island by a long way.

 

[pollensa]

Sounds fabulous & my sort of menu - lots of tiny tastes. I'm just hoping that they don't offer a wine menu to match each course as some do - 11 glasses of wine...

 

[Gommar Goffer]

Oh Pollensa - that would be my kind of place!

This has got to be tried me thinks.

Have to say though - for setting the best restaurant on the island for me is Es Guix - more thoughts please.

And to keep it on track it is on the POLLENSA to Soller road

 

[alcanadakid]

They do indeed do companion wines, but we didn't try them. Surprisingly the wines weren't too expensive considering the place. Most were in the €25-35 mark with the most expensive about €90. It was an extensive list.

I didn't mention the decor before, but there are two places at Jardin. Lunch is served indoors (because of the heat) and upstairs in a beautifully decorated dining room. Dinner is served in the garden under square shaped wooden pagodas which are lined with white drapes. These are decorated with candles and fruit bowls.

I forgot to mention - it is closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

 

[alcanadakid]

They do indeed do companion wines, but we didn't try them. Surprisingly the wines weren't too expensive considering the place. Most were in the €25-35 mark with the most expensive about €90. It was an extensive list.

I didn't mention the decor before, but there are two places at Jardin. Lunch is served indoors (because of the heat) and upstairs in a beautifully decorated dining room. Dinner is served in the garden under square shaped wooden pagodas which are lined with white drapes. These are decorated with candles and fruit bowls.

I forgot to mention - it is closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

Correction - we went again on Friday and I had a more detailed look at the wine list. The most expensive was €900 not €90! However there are a lot of wines in the €20-€30 range. Interestingly Veuve Cliqueot champagne was €50 a bottle where in UK you pay £22 in Sainsbury so their wine mark up is only 2:1 while in most places it is 3:1.

Menu was different and just as good. Service matched the food - outstanding! I read in another website that the chef is trying for a Michelin star and on our experience she should get one easily. This time the menu was:-

1 Small can of octopus Galizian style
2 Gazpacho with cherries
3 Battered and fried sea anemone
4 Salad with field peas and beetroot
5 Fried Yucca with sea cucumber
6 Rice with oysters and fresh red prawn
7 Common dentex (fish) with vegetables and fennel
8 Pigeon with buck wheat
9 Roast sucking pig with spiced bread
10 Pomada ( Slushy drink with gin and lemon)
11 Cheeseboard from Balearic islands
12 Banana with almonds ( not as simple as it sounds)

This time the price for two including predinner glasses of Cava, water, wine (€30) and coffee was €187. I was glad it was my birthday!

 

[Belladonna]

Thanks for all that ak. Am now doing my Restaurants to do list, and this is definately one of them. Am now going to go into their website and remind myself of directions!


Well, we did it, and this is a coppy of the post from the visit.
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Do you remember in the old English exams they used to give a question; "To travel hopefully is better than to arrive. Discuss."
Well this sprang to mind after our trip to Restaurant Jardin in Alcudia.

It started off as so much fun trying to find it with son and hubby. I had copied down directions from AK's posts (which were spot on I hasten to add - it was all my fault!)

We decided to find the restaurant and book it for the following evening. My directions said to take the 3rd exit on the left from the Orange Horse roundabout to start with. Well, we approached this flipping roundabout from every exit, and took every exit out of it trying to work out where we were going! I got annoyed with it all first and pretty upset that we would miss out. Then hubby had the bright idea of perhaps it was the Orange KNOT that we should be heading for. Grudgingly I said that we might as well try it - all the while thinking omg, he may actually be right!!

And of course he was. We then found the restaurant with no problem at all. Although it is in a very unusual position for such an up market restaurant and
very unassuming from the outside.
The entrance through the courtyard was delightful though, and after a few calls out to find someone - it was early afternoon - we were able to book for the following evening.

We arrived to be greeted by smiling waitress's, and were shown to our table. A lovely old candelabra was alight standing against the wall, with many old wax drippings giving a lovely feature.
The table was dressed with smart and clean linen, and small aqua coloured glass stones. Service was charming as we had a pre dinner cava, and were given the low down on the menu.

Unfortunately this had been changed from the one we had looked at when we booked, and no longer had the suckling pig on it! They now only do one tasting menu at 65 euros, although I think they also had a childs tasting menu.

The waitress went through the menu and said that if anything did not suit then they would glady replace it. Straight away we asked if we could substitute one of the fish dishes for the suckling pig one. Her smile froze and she hurried away to ask. When she came back she said unfortunately this was not possible, and would we like anything else changed?! That had been one of the dishes that we had been looking forward to, so really nothing else was needed to be changed.

We started off with the salts and olive oil, with a choice of two breads; an olive bread or a tomatoe bread. Very tasty, but the salts disappeared quickly between the three of us and no replacement offered.

Menu

Stewed cauliflower Mallorcan style
Red Prawns croquette
Smoked mahi mahi with vegetables
Creamy rice with sea cucumber
Lobster parmentier with truffle juice
Red mullet with chillie and tomatoes
iberian ham millefeuille with wild mushrooms and garlic
Figs and Mallorcan sweet herbs
Cheese board from the Balearic Islands
Chocolate cake with Gin Xoriguer

All looks very interesting, and it certainly had some unusual flavours in it,... if you managed to keep any of it on your tongue to taste it in the first place!

To say the portions were small is an understatement. It was totally ridiculous.
The red prawns croquette was one small croquette.
Mahi mahi was two tiny slivers of the fish.
Sea cucumber was no bigger than my little finger.
The others were just as laughable and when the figs turned up, well.. we just looked at each other in amazement. The smallest fig you can think of cut into quarters, then you were served ONE of those quarters!!
The cheese BOARD - oh please. Four elongated cubes half the size of my little finger placed as two crosses on a plate which could have held a hundred times more!
Ok, the chocolate cake was small but tasty and the sauce lovely.

In fact I cannot fault the taste of the food at all, but they were constantly bringing the bread round, and I am sure it was because they knew you would be complaining if you hadnt filled up on it rather than relying on the menu.

The evening then was totally ruined by kareoke booming in from a nearby hotel.

I wish they were open in the winter, as maybe an upstairs table, and no hotel opened, and perhaps larger portions, would change my opinion as it does have, without a doubt, the possibility of a wonderful restaurant.
But as it stands, we were disappointed and it certainly was not value for money. I really had hoped to be saying otherwise.
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