Food Tours Balearics

This week I’m reviewing a gastronomic experience, featuring not one but four restaurants. Food Tours Balearics offers self-guided food tours, during which you eat and drink at four different establishments.

It’s a concept that’s ideal for anyone who isn’t familiar with the local restaurant scene and doesn’t fancy scrolling through TripAdvisor or Google reviews to choose where – or where not – to eat. Or for someone who’d enjoy a different culinary offering. The experts at Food Tours Balearics have carefully selected top-rated restaurants in Mallorca and Ibiza for their various tours.

They take care of the restaurant reservations and bill payments. If you don’t speak Spanish or you’re in a group and usually dread the moment it’s time to split the bill, these two aspects leave you hassle-free to enjoy discovering the different restaurants, some of the area’s highlights along the route, and eating and drinking well.

Food Tours Balearics offers wine-and-dine tours in three areas of Palma: Old Town, Santa Catalina, and what they call ‘Off-Grid’. We were invited to try the Old Town tour, which would feature four of eight restaurants in that area. We didn’t know which four we’d visit until we received the link to our personalised itinerary on their exclusive web app 24 hours in advance. Tours in Mallorca are also available in Sóller and Pollença.

The app was easy to use, with a map showing the walking route, which included some of Palma’s highlights, along with brief descriptions of them. Our tour was from five in the afternoon until nine o’clock.

The serious business of eating and drinking began for us at the popular Vermuteria La Rosa. A glass of  La Rosa’s own natural ‘vermut’, made in Binissalem, flavoured with orange, lemon, grapefruit, and a little cinnamon, was accompanied by two croquettes (one spinach, one ham) and Russian salad on a Sardinian bread cracker.

Our next table was at a former Restaurant of the Week of mine, Cantina Panza, along the Rambla. The gratinated octopus and scallop dish we ate there was delicious.

From there, we walked to the stylish, contemporary boutique hotel, Concepció by Nobis, where a smiling member of the team showed us to our table in the restaurant Xalest. The signature dish here was meltingly tender pork cheek on truffled potato parmentier – a dish for which I’ll return.

Our final stop was in La Lonja, at La Caña, where we had a dulce de leche flan to end our dinner tour. After one final glass of wine, we poured our satisfied selves into a taxi back to the station to catch the train home.

At each restaurant, a warm welcome and good service contributed to the enjoyment of this carefree culinary adventure.  Suggestion: If you’re having visitors from another country, going on one of these tours would be a great introduction to Palma’s exciting gastronomic scene.

Food Tours Balearics’ Palma Old Town tour is offered daily from 13 – 17 h and from 17 – 21 h. The cost, including four drinks and food dishes, is 69€.

Photos: JAN EDWARDS / Estragon La Plaça

Prices correct at time of writing.