Tapas Trail around Port Pollensa

The ‘Ruta del Tapeo’ started in Puerto Pollensa in March this year to encourage locals and tourists alike to sample the culinary delights of bars, cafes and restaurants around this North Majorcan town. The Ruta is held every Thursday evening from 8pm til midnight and is a bargain at only €1.50 for a small glass of beer or wine with a tapa. The Ruta is a great opportunity to try new places and to make friends with others on the trail.

Tapas, the small plates of food from Spain, takes it’s name from the Spanish verb Tapar, ‘to cover’. Traditionally in bars across Spain, when you order a drink they will come with a small snack that was originally used to cover your glass to stop flies getting in or, as in many tapas bars, you would stand using your glass as a table for your plate to sit on.

The tapas trail around Puerto Pollensa takes you all around town and is great for local Mallorcan businesses to attract new customers, and for tourists to discover hidden gems that are not on the usual Majorca tourist guides. Although there is a numbered map, you do not have to follow the route exactly - infact nobody really does, you can just take the night as it comes and if you enjoy the tapas in a particular bar then you are welcome to stay for a second round where generally you will be served a different tapa.

The route is available all year round and is already proving very popular. Puerto Pollensa is hoping that a night like this will continue to attract customers even during the winter months, and that it will bring the community together and help support local business and traditional cuisine.

Our Ruta experience was very enjoyable, and we managed to sampled five places. The first restaurant we went to was located on the front promenade and was called La Cabaña, where we were served a delicious meatball in a tomato sauce. This restaurant is great to sit and watch the people go by but as it was still early, it was fairly quiet and didn’t have the atmosphere we expected for the tapas crawl.

The next stop was Taps, an already renowned bar for tapas in Puerto Pollensa and sure not to disappoint. Unfortunately the waiter in this restaurant was run ragged with so many customers which meant we were waiting quite a while to order. When the tapas arrived it was a small potato croquet with a meatball on top. At this point we were a little worried that all bars were serving meatballs tonight, but it still tasted good and you could start to enjoy the atmosphere of a busy Majorcan tapas bar.

After Taps we headed to the main square to a Mallorquian restaurant, Can Torrents which has been there for many years but yet I have never been in for a proper meal. It served up slices of pork with a few chips and some bread, it was a tasty and simple tapas and somewhat unusual.

The next two bars were one street back from the main square and are a popular breakfast destination for locals in the morning. The first, Geminis 18 served a mini burger with smalls squares of Spanish omelette, this was really tasty and had a strong garlic flavour and was served with a tomato relish.

The final bar and the one that served my favourite tapas was Cafe d’Eu Moll. ‘Eu Moll’ is what the locals call the town of Puerto Pollensa. Here they served a pintxo with trempó which is a small slice of bread with finely diced tomato, onion and green pepper on top. Unfortunately I was too excited to eat this pintxo and forgot to take a photo. The waiter in this bar explained to us that they used home grown tomatoes and you could really taste the flavour and juiciness of the ingredients which cannot be compared to fruit & veg from the supermarket. Here I didn’t have a beer but just a fizzy drink which cost an extra €0.30.

Overall the Ruta del Tapeo was thoroughly enjoyable and there was a great atmosphere in most bars. You can follow the tapas trail every Thursday evening, from 8.00pm to 12 midnight. Pick up a map of the participating bars & restaurants at the tourist office.