El Camino, Palma

We were in Palma to celebrate my best friend’s 40th and, knowing how much we all love Barrafina, she kindly booked El Camino (their sister restaurant) as a thank you for coming. A very generous move and very on brand for her.

El Camino has that same counter-style setup as Barrafina, where you sit up at the bar and watch everything being cooked in front of you. It’s busy but relaxed, and the kind of place where you end up ordering more and more without really thinking about it. Especially when you are drinking the quantities of wine we were…

The food is excellent. It’s clearly from the same family as Barrafina, but it doesn’t feel like a copy, it stands on its own.

We started with the salt cod fritters, which were exactly what you want: crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. The courgette flower with goat’s cheese was probably my favourite though with a light, crunchy batter and not too heavy. Definitely a must-order.

For salad, we had the fig, jamón and burrata salad. Honestly this was one of the best things we ate. Sweet, salty, creamy. Another must-order.

The tortilla was classic Barrafina, perfectly soft in the middle, properly rich and unmatchable.

When it came to the meat, we slightly lost control as the afternoon wandered on and the wine continued to flow. The prawns were great big hunks of perfectly tender deliciousness, the lamb cutlets were incredible and the octopus with romesco was stunning. The romesco sauces at Barrafina restaurants are the best and I always order the dishes with them.

There’s nothing flashy about the menu and that’s really the point. It just does everything really well. You can order pretty much anything and know it’ll be good. It’s one of those meals where you leave full, a bit tipsy and already talking about when you can go back.