Menorca's cooking combines Catalan and Mediterranean tradition with influences left by the British and French in the eighteenth century. It is produce-led cooking: fish and shellfish, cheeses, charcuterie and garden vegetables.
Typical dishes
- Caldereta de langosta: the most famous dish, a lobster stew with tomato, onion, garlic and peppers, served with slices of dry bread. Its home is Fornells, a fishing village on the north coast, where many restaurants make it; it is expensive, but worth trying once.
- Oliaigua: a peasant soup of oil, water, onion, peppers and, in summer, tomatoes, served with bread and sometimes figs.
- Albergínies farcides: aubergines stuffed with meat or fish, baked.
- Arròs de la terra: a "rice" made from ground wheat.
- The day's fish grilled, stuffed calamars a la menorquina and caldereta de peix.
Cheese and charcuterie
- Mahón-Menorca cheese, with protected designation of origin, made from cow's milk, square with rounded corners from the cloth it is pressed in. It may be fresh, semi-cured or cured, with an orange rind rubbed with oil and paprika.
- Sobrasada, a soft, spreadable pork and paprika sausage, carn i xua and cuixot, typical island charcuterie.
Mayonnaise
According to the most widespread tradition, mayonnaise was born in Mahón in 1756: the Duke of Richelieu's cook, celebrating his conquest of the island for France, made a sauce of eggs and local oil called salsa mahonesa. Other theories place its birth in France, but in Menorca nobody doubts it.
Sweets and drinks
Ensaïmada, almond carquinyols, bitter-almond amargos, filled rubiols and Easter formatjades. To drink, Menorca gin and pomada, festival gin with lemonade (see gin), and island wines.
Where to eat
Restaurants on the harbours of Mahón and Ciutadella, fish restaurants in Fornells and Es Castell, beach chiringuitos in the coves and taverns inland in Alaior, Es Mercadal and Ferreries. See also Spanish cuisine.