Fine Dining and Home-cooked Specialites to Try Yourself on Menorca

If you’d like a break from eating out every day of your Menorcan holiday, here’s an idea: entertain within your very own private villas in Menorca. While there are many top-notch restaurants and smaller, family run establishments to enjoy the fabulous cuisine, there’s nothing that says you’re living the lifestyle of the locals more than entertaining new found friends in your very own home away from home.

What To Serve

When you’re staying in one of the fabulous private villas in Menorca, eat as the locals do – and that means preparing the simple yet delicious fare commonly enjoyed by the Spanish. Utilising the myriad fresh ingredients and local produce, this is hearty cuisine with an exotic twist – influenced by the many cultures who have made the islands their home over history.

There are many dishes from the great cucina Menorquina that are not hard to get your head around. Here are just a few of them.

Tomatoes, Peppers, Olives and Other Bounty of the Land

Access to the freshest ingredients makes for some of the best anywhere in the Mediterranean. With its year-round mild climate, incredibly rich and fertile soil, and entrenched agricultural roots, perfect conditions for planting mean locals on the island always have access to amazingly luscious produce that ends up in their wonderful cuisine.

In fact, aside from the farms dotted around the numerous private villas in Menorca, many homes on the island have at least small-scale vegetable gardens in their own backyard; so it’s quite understandable that much of the regular Menorcan fare features these products.

The Ubiquitous Sofrito

Sofrito is a sauce that’s the mainstay of many dishes on the island. In fact, many of those wonderful dishes traditional cooks serve up in cafes and restaurants feature this base sauce one way or the other. Whether you’re serving paella (the traditional Spanish rice dish), caldereta de langosta (the famed lobster soup of the island - more on that later), fidua (a noodle dish), or the different arroz caldos or pasta dishes and more, it all starts with a good sofrito.

A perfect sofrito is made from fresh tomatoes, green peppers, good quality olive oil, garlic, salt and a few spices that differ from recipe to recipe. Many families make it a tradition to make jars and jars of sofrito during July and stock them up for winter inside their well-stocked pantries.

The Langosta Menorquina

No fine-dining occasion in your private villas in Menorca is complete without a dish or two featuring the island culinary star: the Menorcan lobster! Small, simple, yet incredibly rich, the lobster is the main feature in some of the island’s most famous dishes. Paella de Langosta is paella made with a base of the lobster and traditional seafood. Then, of course, there’s the famous Caldereta de Langosta, or lobster stew, that is so famous people come from all around the world to try it. Still, for many seafood enthusiasts nothing beats the Langosta Menorquina on its own, lightly fried with olive oil and garlic, or grilled on a barbecue over hot coals.

Brenda Jaaback is the Managing Director of Bartle Holidays. They can provide you with a wide selection of great private villas in Menorca for your holidays. Bartle Holidays makes no warranty as to the accuracy of information contained in this article and excludes any liability of any kind for the information.

Writer and Online Marketing Manager in London.