Zee Restaurant Review, Can Pastilla

They generally point out popular places that get votes (this doesn’t mean we share their opinion…), some of which are better than others. We are not sure how their rankings work because some of the restaurants in the top 10 only have 14 reviews. It’s a bit of a mystery.

We do, however, like to use TripAdvisor results panels to reinforce our reviews – for your own reassurance that we aren’t simply making up our recommendations.

Zee Restaurant, in Can Pastilla (just east of Palma) is currently ranked No.1 of the restaurants in Palma de Mallorca and number 10 in all of Mallorca. There are comments such as ‘without a doubt it was one of the best meals we have ever had’, ‘number one, no doubt!, ‘Michelin-quality restaurant in Palma’ and ‘beautiful Terrace in the bay of Cala Estancia’. It sounded too good to miss.

Before going, we had a quick look at Zee’s website and were reassured by the shiny and accomplished presentation. The restaurant is located in a fairly residential part of town, not far from the airport, though not really a stroll from the centre, so it’s car or taxi ride for most visitors.

The Frenchman, the self-titled ‘Mallorcan Asset’ - James, and I made our way over there on a Tuesday evening, admittedly early in the season. The restaurant itself has been sleekly designed, with a cool modern decked terrace out front and an elegant dining room inside. All very nicely done.

As it was a warm evening, we opted for a table on the terrace – a mistake. We sat down, slightly bemused at our view on to the street - a battered Nissan Micra and a fairly dull apartment building opposite - and not the ‘bay of Cala Estancia’. A plane roared overhead. Ninety seconds later, another plane rumbled through the air as we began to realise how close we were to Palma Airport. The air-traffic controller in Top Gun would definitely be saying to ‘Maverick’, ‘the pattern is full’ as our conversations were continually interupted whilst yet another Air Berlin flight took off.

Although our drinks came quite quickly, we waited for quite some time for the menus. It turned out the waiter was new and didn’t speak English (we don’t assist as we prefer to fulfil our foreign visitor roles properly) so there was some confusion about who was serving our table. It was early in the season so we were fairly sympathetic at this stage. Once the situation was resolved, our charming waitress grimaced as another plane passed over and handed us some menus.

Zee offers three set menus of three, four and five courses, and an a la carte menu. However, the a la carte menu only features the same dishes as the set menus, and does work out more expensive if you chose more than two courses.

As we perused the menu, we realised that we could only order one of the set menus for the whole table – you all have to go for the same option; in fairness this is mentioned on the website and we had missed it when we looked. For parties of more than five the only option is the set menu.

This whole approach threatened to cause us some problems. The Frenchman wanted the five course menu to give the range of dishes a proper try, I was happy with the four course option and ‘The Asset’ only wanted the three course menu as he wasn’t keen on some of the options. We asked our waitress if this was possible. ‘No’ was the polite answer.

‘The Asset’ asked if he could have a starter and a main course from the a la carte whilst the Frenchman and I took the five course menu. ‘No’ was the polite answer. We looked around the restaurant – in defence of our slightly painful requests they were virtually empty - and wondered, why not? ‘The Asset’ was beginning to get agitated. A final throw of the dice, he asked if he could just have a main course whilst we two had the five course dinner. The waitress hesitated before agreeing that would be possible. Hallelujah! Scene averted.

We understand that the kitchen wants to produce the best quality food it can and when a table orders the same things it is much easier for the kitchen to achieve this. However, it does mean that you and your family/friends have to like the same dishes. So if you do want to experience Zee for yourselves, it is definitely worth checking their website to look at the menus to ensure one of them suits your party. The website says that they can accommodate changes in the menus to suit dietary requirements etc. but, from our experience, this probably needs to be arranged in advance.

And so to the meal. Despite the small menu, one of the options - the scallops - were not available on the five course meal and we were offered an alternative course involving duck livers, which we had had elsewhere for lunch. We asked if we could have Carpaccio of beef fillet instead, which was agreed to by the waitress immediately.

Well, we waited for over an hour for our starters to arrive – maybe we were being punished….

Eventually, the Carpaccio was served. It looked very appetising and clearly had been carefully prepared – the restaurant plays a lot on presentation. All the raw ingredients were good but for both the Frenchmen & I the accompanying truffle ‘dressing’ turned out to be a thick creamy sauce, and in our opinion, was far too heavy & strongly flavoured for the delicate slices of beef.

This was followed by luke-warm salmon with white asparagus, which again, was perfectly adequate. Another creamy sauce over the salmon made the dish just too rich for me. The Frenchman seems impervious to rich food but even he raised a Gallic eye-brow at the lack of contrast, although he seemed to be happily distracted fishing two types of caviar eggs out of the sauce with his fork.

After another long wait, the waitress eventually came over and apologised sincerely for the delay to our third course (a mix up in communications – something to do with their new trial of walkie-talkies, which weren't quite as slick looking as places like Forn Restaurant are using iTouch's), surprising given the fairly predictable order of our meal and the few other diners; but we were offered complementary drinks on the house as an apology.

By this point, two hours had passed since we had arrived and ‘The Asset’ was beginning to suffer from near hypoglycaemic-shock. And there was no relief for him yet as our fish course, turbot with basil & tomato, was finally served. The fish was perfectly cooked, the tomato fresh, but yet again, the whole thing was finished with a creamy sauce.

The meat course arrived quickly afterwards, and ‘The Asset’ thankfully got stuck into his duck filet & confit leg. The Frenchman & I were served with veal entrecote with tuna mayonnaise – a twist on the classic Italian ‘Vitello Tonnato’ perhaps? Again, the dish was beautifully presented and perfectly cooked but following the rest - just that bit too creamy again, and regrettably for us, the sauce was the same as the substituted Carpaccio dish we had earlier.

‘Vitello Tonnato’ is a dish has always struck us a slightly strange although when you read about it, someone clearly believes it’s special. We have tried a version of it in Tristans (Puerto Portals) as well as Zee and I am afraid to report that to us, it just tastes bland. Perhaps our palates are not refined enough.

Dessert consisted of Carpaccio of strawberry marinated with truffle honey, with red fruit soup and mango ice cream. And for a touch of theatre, the waitress poured some Cava over the mango ice cream, which dutifully fizzed and bubbled excitedly. I wasn’t sure about the combination and was fairly full so I donated my dessert to ‘The Asset’ having had a taster. I am not a fan of truffle honey and I found it overpowering, and the Cava & mango ice cream combination was a bit too odd for my taste buds too. The Frenchman polished his off having found the truffle honey superfluous, the Cava making the mango sorbet taste rather bitter, but happy with the fruit soup.

The five course set menu is priced at €47 which is very good value if you like everything that is on offer. The Frenchman and I couldn’t fault the execution of the dishes, you can tell they are trying hard, and we always prefer to be positive in our recommendations; but the flavours were all a bit too similar and lacked contrast for us.

I guess we prefer a 'less-creamy' style of Mediterranean cooking when we are in a warm climate. We personally felt the set menu lacked balance but if you like creamy finishes and truffles, you will probably love it. And if you do choose to dine on the terrace, expect to have your conversations interrupted every couple of minutes by the planes unless you are proficient in sign-language.

The website describes the philosophy of the restaurant: ‘It was on board my last yacht chartering around the Mediterranean that I met the critically acclaimed Dutch chef, Hilbert Sluiter’ and on reflection we realise this feels like set meals you get in a ski chalet or on a yacht, where everyone eats the same meal – it’s just not what we personally expected in a restaurant. This whole menu arrangement seemed to be related to timing the dishes and we got the impression this was more for the benefit of coordinating the kitchen than for our enjoyment.

Is this a top ten restaurant in Mallorca? Not for us, it just wasn’t quite slick or charming enough when we visited. But clearly lots of people on TripAdvisor love it. Maybe we are the quirky ones and the collective masses are right? The decision is yours...