El Pescadito de Binibeca, Menorca

On our first day on Menorca, after a couple of hours diving off rocks and sunbathing at the stunning Es Calo Blanc, we drove into Binibeca Vell, an old mock fishing village resort designed in the 1970s by Spanish architect Antonio Sintes with accommodation and restaurants, bars and shops. (You can read more here.)

Now, I know I make a big deal of this on the blog, but I hate walking into tourist-trap food places so I am very big on a little research before I go to a place. So I had already done a quick google and checked TripAdvisor and made a decision on Restaurante El Pescadito de Binibeca, based mainly on a picture of the paella that they serve (and it didn’t disappoint!). We jumped in the car, did the standard behind-the-towel change in the car park and headed down to Binibeca Vell.

We were welcomed by a friendly waiter who sat us on a shaded terrace and brought us a simple page-long menu in a variety of languages. I love a shorter menu. I don’t want 12 pages of various curry/pasta/grill/pizza/burger dishes. No chef is good at everything. I prefer to eat fresh and local when I’m away. And considering that I was on a Mediterranean island surrounded by the sea, I really wanted seafood. And lots of it. After ordering a couple of drinks, we settled on a bowl of marinara mussels and a seafood paella for two. The marinara sauce was OUT.OF.THIS.WORLD. I would have eaten it as a soup. We couldn’t mop it up fast enough with the freshly baked bread that they served on the side. Delicious. The paella was a huge portion for 2 people. Not that that didn’t stop us from also gorging the lot as it was just so good. I love when the top layer of rice is still a bit crunchy so you have a bit of a chewy texture when you eat it. (Hispanophiles, please agree with me here!) I was shockingly full afterwards, but I didn’t really care.

It was a fantastic great first meal in Menorca. We really enjoyed it. In fact, we loved it so much, we went back on our last day on the island, swapping out the mussels for the house salad & garlic prawns. Both times, the meal came to just over 50 euros (about £35), which we thought was really well priced. Yum.