MALLORCA UNEDITED
“Mallorca is a paradise, if you can stand it”. The Jazz Age novelist Gertrude Stein could conceivably have been talking about C’as Patro March, the decades-old Mallorquin seafood shack that’s all driftwood and slanting shade, stuck limpet-like to the cliff face and framed by impossibly blue seas. It could well be the prettiest restaurant on the planet. But beauty accolades aside, it’s the authenticity of C’as Patro March that feels so on-point this year. Run by the same family for decades, it is laid-back, unhurried (a sign at the entrance suggests that he who is hungry must wait) and sustainable. There’s no Kobe beef here, no prawns from China - just catch of the day, seasonal vegetables and a handful of homegrown potatoes. Paradise indeed.
C’as Patro March is approached by sea, or else by a precipitous, tightly switch backing road from that is redolent with the lush stickiness of ripe figs and cacti sap. A rocky riverbed, bone-dry and barren, tumbles like a wound from the cliffside. The whooshing
