10 Best Local Dishes from Mallorca

Frit mallorqui is a roasted meat dish complemented by fried onions, beans, potatos and red peppers that dates back to the 14th century with similarities to Jewish and Arabic food. The meat is seasoned with a combination of guindilla (cayenne pepper), garlic, cinnamon, fennel and clove.

It's important to note that this dish is quite versatile, so you'll likely find quite a few variations of it throughout your journey in Mallorca. Frito de matanzas, for example, is made with pork, while frito de pascua is made with lamb. There's even a seafood variation called frit mariner. You'll find it all over the island.

Coca mallorquina is a unique tart made with Mallorcan red peppers that are roasted and sit atop a crust cooked with olive oil. It uses several cloves of garlic when making it, along with lemon and orange zest.

In addition to the peppers, this dish is commonly made with anchovy fillets as well as capers and dill. It's fairly common in most restaurants that specialize in local food. Just make sure you don't refer to it as a pizza, despite it looking like a rectangular version of it in most cases.

Arros brut is a classic rice dish that effectively functions as Mallorca's unique version of paella with a combination of meat and veggies in a soup mixture. Directly translating to 'dirty rice', this dish utilizes a variety of spices to give the soupy water around the rice an alluring brownish color.

The exact meat and veg included in this dish varies based on the season. Chicken is common, but you may also find game meat, rabbit and even snails. As for the spices, it commonly uses saffron, cinnamon, pepper, paprika and nutmeg. You'll find it all over the island.

Sopas mallorquinas is a dense soup served warm that features seasonal ingredients including a variety of meat and veg with a touch of olive oil. The soup derives from the people of the Tramuntana mountains who wanted something to keep them warm on particularly chilly days.

While the specific ingredients change based on the season, this soup is most commonly made with thin slices of bread, tomatoes, cabbage, beans, garlic and paprika. Pork loin and botifarra are common meat add-ons, but vegetarian versions are readily available. It's available all around the island, but it's iconic in the mountains.

Llom amb Col is a dish of pork loin and cabbage that was developed to make the most of locally-available winter ingredients. At its core, this dish is a pork loin wrapped in cabbage and then cooked in a clay pot, though more modern chefs tend to use more contemporary techniques.

In addition to pork, this dish often includes sobrassada and botifarra, and it's cooked in a mixture of wine, pine nuts, raisins and tomatoes along with whatever other ingredients the chef likes. You'll find it all over the island, especially during the winter.

Lechona asada is a traditional Christmas dish that consists of a roasted piglet that's juicy and delicious after being marinated for a full 24 hours before cooking. It marinates in a combination of brandy, bay leaf, rosemary, lemon and garlic to give it its tasty flavor.

Traditionally, locals would only take care of the marinating themselves before it became commonplace to have an oven in the home. Before then, people would bring their marinated piglets to the local bakery to get them cooked. You'll find this dish at many local Mallorcan restaurants, especially around Christmas.

Tumbet mallorquín is a popular summer Mediterranean dish that's made using fried eggplants, a type of eggplant, combined with potatos, red peppers, olive oil and garlic. Zucchini is commonly included as well if you're looking for that extra bit of crunch.

This dish is popular all over the island, especially with travelers from the north side of the Mediterranean. Plus, it's completely vegan, so the dish appeals to a wide range of people. It can be served as a main dish or a side dish, with the latter often being used to complement meat or fish.

Llonguet is a type of small fluffy bread, typically a bun, defined by its deep middle crack that's often used for sandwiches or just eating with a spread. Filling the crack in this bread with meat and veg makes it the obvious sandwich bread, but that's just the beginning.

This bread is popularly consumed with spread sobrassada. It's available all across the island, but it's particularly popular in Palma. In fact, people from Palma eat this bread so often that residents of the city are sometimes referred to as llonguets.

Ensaimada is a pastry that is made with saim, or pork lard, for a unique taste that works as a part of breakfast or an afternoon snack. This pastry has a spiral shape and is made with flour, sugar, mother dough, water and eggs in addition to the saim.

When you look for ensaimada around town, you're likely to run into different variations of it. Some include fillings of pumpkin strings, or cabell d'angel as it's known locally, while others are filled with cream or chocolate. It's one of the most popular pastries on the island, so they're available virtually everywhere.

Bunyols are a type of doughnut that's made by cooking potato dough in hot oil and sprinkling it with a bit of sugar. When walking through Mallorca in October, you'll often smell these doughnuts cooking in small towns, though it's particularly noticeable during the weekend of Les Verges.

While these doughnuts are traditionally connected with Les Verges, they're popular in a variety of autumn festivals throughout the island. Keep in mind that they're best eaten hot, so be sure to give any food vendors time to get you some fresh bunyols.