Photograph by ‘@leyre.lopezdelapaz’

CAFÉS

You know they’re a European staple because they’re Turkish

Photograph from ‘@fornetdelasoca’

I don’t know what your first instinct is when you travel to a different city, but mine, for better or for worse, is waddling around pretty streets until I find something interesting.

‘Interesting’ typically just means food.

Unlike the rest of Europe, in Spain, before the late introduction of coffee and café culture there was the ‘chocolateria’.

Basically, a café for hot chocolate.

While one has never supplanted the other, cafés very clearly have more money in the game nowadays. That is fine and all, but it should't stop you from trying the other.

They’re a popular attraction in every big city for a reason! And even if it is a bit touristy everyone should try to go to San Gines at least once when in Madrid.

Ca’n Joan de s’Aigo is a popular Chocolate café in Palma that purportedly dates the ice-cream making part of its business all the way back to the 1700s. Talking at length about how generations ago its founders would cart blocks of ice from the mountains to sell. And, in that process created the first version of the Almond sorbet you still see in the menu of the café.

Food history can sometimes play a bit fast and loose with precise dates and facts, but regardless of how exact the story is, we can definitely vouch for the sorbet and ice cream itself. Good stuff.

Assortments of Mallorqui Custard Ensaimadas next to an incredibly varied selection of ice-creams and savoury dishes to pair with the thicker and richer form of hot chocolate Spain is best known for.

By pure coincidence its main location happens to be just a block away from Can Vivot.

We have been there many times.

Photograph of ‘NANØ coffee lab’

To contrast that:

NANØ coffee lab:

A sleekly decorated, small café off an alley that connects to Paseo del Borne, arguably the street of central Palma.

A small, but great vegan pastry and savoury section, options for iced drinks, and above it all a wonderful selection of specialty coffee they update and showcase every so and so months on their Instagram!

We’ve been here since the first edition of XTANT in Mallorca. Between travelling from location to location, or our 2023 exposition in Paseo de Borne itself, its doors have practically been the symbol of a break. The owners are very kind people. Tell them we sent you.

Also get the cheesy toast!

Photograph of ‘NANØ coffee lab’

Of course there are many other good cafés almost everywhere throughout the city, and we’d be remiss not to mention them, but to avoid too much clutter please put up with a quick bullet point list:

PLUMO café: A cyclist enthusiast decoration, wide ample spaced seating and high ceilings, its a great stop with a much more relaxed ambiance than the rest of the bustling city. Also happens to serve really good breakfast toasts right next door to Can Vivot, so the team has been there a lot.

Café Poupette: Happens to be nearby to Museu Es Baluard! …Listen we can’t really stray that far, work calls and all. As an addendum the Santa Catalina Market practically a must go when it comes to gastronomy is just short walk away.

Bakery Fornet de la Soca: By Tomeu Arbona and María José, authorities on Mallorqui food history, their bakery is an institution. On top of that the owner’s Instagram has a kind of blind, authentic whimsy about it that you don’t tend see much online.

But for those who don’t drink coffee there is the ONLY other European drink: Wine. (Also invented in the middle east.)

Bar La Sang: Started by Lukas Lundgren, La Sang and its associated wine company practically brought natural wines to the island. Pioneering and partnering with different locales around the city. I may be no wine buff, but I do know a lot of people past their 30s and they seem to love this stuff.

With a staggering selection of bottles and a system of invited guest chefs in paired taste menus, there’s no better place to try it.

Photograph inside Arquinesia Perfume Shop @arquinesia

But it’s not all sweets, drinks, and small bites on the Island. Only mostly so.

Palma is a culturally rich mix of almost everything that’s touched the Mediterranean. From its Arabic palaces, to Aragonese and Catalan ports, to certain remnants of the time when the British invaded (Though they never truly left.)

There’s a lot to see. And its cathedrals, forts and tanned seaside walls are a photographers paradise.

Photograph of ‘@gourabganguli’

By @Kavitaparmar at Jaume Plensa at la Lonja

I lied to you. It is all about food.

Further a field from the narrow, packed side streets and the first wave of the incoming summer tourists is… a whole island.

Mallorca is a lot more than just Palma. And even if its just to find a less crowded beach, there is value in driving out of the city to see it.

So, A bit of a long shot but we’d really like to spotlight a kindred spirit of the program in:

Ca Na Toneta by Maria Solivellas

Listen, I get it, no one wants to go on a half hour drive during a vacation. But if there are a few places that you must go to on the Island its here.

Is it pricy?… uh- yeah kind of unambiguously so. But it is also a unique and well cultivated experience. With the kind of minute care for the origins and processes that go into its every dish that we in the textile world are only recently striving towards.

Gastronomy has always been a bit ahead of the curve in that regard. Despite the similar issues we may have in the broader “fast” and industrial parts of our worlds they have, in large part, already centered the concepts of care for their craft in the general zeitgeist.

Its not really that hard to see why Maria´s work appeals to us personally, similar mindset and all that.

So you know, as the kids say : “Game recognises game” or whatever.

Hmm? Why is there more space? … it couldn’t be -

Another workshop is Live!