PEIX VERMELL - SUPPER

Address:  Calle San Feliu, 7, 07012 Palma
Telephone:  00 34 971 079374

We went here on a chilly Sunday evening in February because we were unexpectedly without water at home - my husband had inadvertently drilled through a water pipe and the plumber was not available until the following day.

Our usual choices of restaurants were closed for holidays so we decided to try Peix Vermell as it was open and one that we had passed on foot many times and said that we must try it.

It was quite busy when we arrived and the staff said could we wait a moment to check if there was a table available.  We did so and a table was then found.  We were rather surprised that we had to wait for a table when we noticed another part to the restaurant with empty tables!

The restaurant is in two parts, both of which are formed from a long room with a stone arched ceiling and white rendered walls with some figurative paintings of people.  Somehow it lacked a bit of character in spite of being in an old building.

My husband ordered a verdejo wine which was good and I had a G&T which was OK but rather heavy on ice.

We are quite relaxed folk but we found the waiting staff over familiar and rather presumptuous that, as we are British, we must love football and proceeded to talk about their favourite UK team and players.  As we are not big football fans it rather went over our heads.  They also wanted to verbally spar with my husband on most visits to the table which was also a bit annoying.  The owner and all bar one of the waiting staff are Bulgarian so perhaps it was their way of trying to put people at ease.  The non-Bulgarian waiter was a very timid Italian.

We shared prawns with garlic as a starter and it was very tasty and the prawns fresh but it was not quite hot enough for my husband.

To follow my husband had turbot and I had gilt-head bream.  Both were very fresh and cooked well.  They were accompanied by French fries which were not very hot and rather dry - they appeared to be reheated from earlier.  We ordered grilled asparagus on the side which was fresh and well cooked.

For dessert I was tempted to try a white chocolate brownie with ice cream.  However, it was actually a light sponge with a hint of white chocolate and walnut with a scoop of nice vanilla ice cream on top.  It was tasty but nothing like what I would define as a brownie.  The cortado coffee to finish was well made.

The bill came to about €80 which was reasonable.  However, the dessert and coffee were given to us compliments of the house.  In spite of this generosity it is not a restaurant that we will be heading back to any time soon.  There are too many other restaurants in Palma with charming staff and consistently good food at a good price that this one would come low down our list - even on a chilly Sunday night when we were forced to dine out.