Best Restaurants in Santa Catalina, Palma

Vandal's menu is organised by country rather than by course: you choose the destinations you want to eat through, and chef Bernabé Caravotta's kitchen sends out dishes built from wherever you pick, currently running through Thailand, Peru, France, Japan, Mexico, Spain, India, Colombia and Italy. Guía Repsol calls the style cocina mestiza, fusion cooking rooted in Mallorcan produce. Caravotta cooked at Mirazur in France and under René Redzepi at Noma in Denmark, trained at Thailand's Blue Elephant cooking school, and settled on the island in 2007. Sebastián Pérez runs the dining room and pairs cocktails to the food rather than listing them separately. The room sits on Plaça del Progrés in Santa Catalina, dinner only, seven nights a week. Book online at vandalpalma.com or by phone, it fills up.

Stagier Bar is run by a Chilean-Peruvian couple out of a room of around seven tables, small enough that it reads more like a dinner party than a restaurant, and it's earned a Michelin Guide listing. The chef trained in well-known Spanish kitchens before building a menu that riffs on those roots: Gillardeau oysters, duck-and-foie-gras croquettes, a sea bass and grilled octopus ceviche in rocoto tiger's milk, lomo saltado gyozas, smoked steak tartare and a smoked wagyu hanger steak, finished with a warm chocolate and lucuma cake. Hours shift with the season, dinner only through summer with a Tuesday-to-Friday lunch added in winter, and it's closed Sundays. Because the room is so small, book ahead through stagierbar.com or by phone.

Santa calls itself a vanguard steakhouse, and the concept runs through the whole room: menu and dining room built around sin, temptation and the tug between good and evil, on Calle Fàbrica in Santa Catalina. The menu opens with sourdough bread and smoked butter, toasted coca de cristal with crushed ramallet tomato, and baked provolone with sun-dried tomato pesto, before moving into a Santa choripán, crispy bravas potatoes with kimchi sauce, black Angus cecina with confit egg yolk, seared red tuna, and a grilled Australian black Angus burger with smoked white cheddar. It's dinner only, closed Tuesdays, and rated 4.4 out of 5 on Google from 401 reviews, a buzzy, theatrical pick for a date night rather than a quiet dinner.

Chef Irene Gutiérrez opened Sumaq in June 2013 on Carrer de Sant Magí and moved it the following year to its current address on Carrer de Cotoner. The name comes from Quechua, where 'sumaq' means delicious, sumptuous or beautiful, and the kitchen backs that up with Peruvian cooking that draws on the country's coast, Amazon and Andes alongside Mallorcan touches. The à la carte runs long, with a dedicated ceviche section, from the causa de confit de pato a la huancaína to a ceviche mixto exótico of salmon, corvina and red tuna, plus a bacalao gratinado finished with lime cream. There's also a tasting menu for those who want the kitchen to choose. It's listed in the Michelin Guide, and reservations run through the CoverManager system in Spanish, English or German.

Duke has been running in Santa Catalina since 2009, led by chef Ronny Portulidis, from Greece, and chef Jorge Esteve, from Valencia, and its own line is that it was 'never about one thing only,' balancing food, service, ambience and location. The kitchen sources with intent, produce from farmers it knows, meat from trusted butchers, fish from sustainable Mediterranean fishing areas, and turns it into a genuinely global spread: Peruvian chifles, Greek pita bread, Korean firecracker chicken, Lebanese lamb kebabs, a Thai green mango salad and a classic ceviche the menu calls Duke '09. It's dinner only, Monday to Saturday, closed Sundays, with the menu run digitally via QR code rather than a printed carta.

OSMA is a small room on Carrer de la Pursiana run by a couple: Marion, from France's Rhône region, handles wine and hospitality, while chef Javier, from Cáceres, spent years cooking in French estates and grandes maisons before opening here. The cooking stays classical French, sauces, stocks and traditional technique worked with seasonal produce, aiming, in the kitchen's own words, for balance, depth and sensitivity without artifice. The carte runs from a house-made mackerel sobrasada and a daily pâté en croûte to foie gras mi-cuit with puff pastry brioche, Calvisius caviar with cauliflower and bone marrow, a red partridge escabeche, and frog legs served as a tribute to Bernard Loiseau. It's open Tuesday to Saturday evenings only, closed Sunday and Monday, and small enough that booking ahead matters.

Nus is chef-owner Irene Martínez's project, a japoandaluza taberna that blends Japanese technique with Andalusian flavours and Mallorcan produce as small plates for sharing. The name nods to her carpenter father: 'nus' is Catalan for a wood joint, and his old workbench now serves as the restaurant's communal table. Martínez trained in Mallorca under Tomeu Martí at Arume and Santi Taura at Dins, then under David Muñoz at DiverXO in Madrid, before travelling through Asia, including Japan and Vietnam. The carta runs from a crispy oyster with tartare sauce and kombu-marinated snapper to tuna cooked on the kamado and an oxtail à la royale, and there's a set sharing menu, A Mesa Puesta, at €49 a head, whose own tagline is 'no pienses, solo come.' Closed Sunday and Monday; TheFork puts the average spend around €45.

Nagami Nikkei sits on Carrer de Caro, cooking in the Nikkei tradition that unites Peruvian and Japanese food with local Mallorcan products alongside global flavours. The menu is structured the way Nikkei kitchens usually run, cold starters, hot starters, sushi rolls, mains and desserts, with dishes like causa limeña, ceviche Nikkei, tiradito Nobu, usuzukuri de atún and a duck korokke on the list. It's dinner only, open Monday to Wednesday and Friday to Saturday, closed Thursdays and Sundays, and keeps a private group lounge for larger bookings alongside gift-experience options. Reservations run online or by phone. The venue's own record here is thinner than most in the neighbourhood, with no listed chef name or founding story to draw on.

Bistro Esencia bills itself as informal fine dining, and the plates back that up: a Mallorca-in-a-bite starter of almond croquette and olives, a roasted watermelon carpaccio with ponzu and wasabi, spinach gnocchi with fresh black truffle, and braised eco Mallorcan pork cheeks in Mantonegro wine with fresh truffle and quince. Two tasting menus run alongside a seasonal à la carte, REVOLUTION at €60 and a five-course GREAT CLASSIC at €65, and there's a vegan tasting option too. The wine list leans local, km0 and organic, with picks from Spain, France and Italy. Tables seat up to six, children over 12 are welcome, and it's evening service only, Wednesday to Sunday. Book by email or WhatsApp.

Isaan takes its name from one of Thailand's wildest, least touristy regions, in the country's northeast, and the restaurant cooks in a fully renovated Santa Catalina space with an open kitchen you can watch from the table. The menu runs to grilled satee skewers, chicken and prawn, spring rolls with and without chicken, a grilled beef salad with mint and lime, and a chicken larb with roasted rice, all served across a few spice levels. There's also a set menu for two or more at €43 per person, covering starters, a beef salad, pad Thai and a red curry. The full English carta is a downloadable PDF on the site, and Isaan runs its own takeout and delivery; online booking goes through Restoo, though the nearest dates often show full.

LÕA runs as a restaurant, wine bar and cocktail bar together on Carrer Cotoner, framed by the team as a personal manifesto where hospitality, multiculturalism, art and music meet. The kitchen is fire- and grill-driven, from chef Jhon Chavarriaga, who the restaurant says worked as sous chef at Gaucho Piccadilly in London before refining his fire cooking in Mallorca alongside Stefan Brunner of Schwaiger Xino's, and the carta runs from grilled black cod and marinated hamachi to a dry-aged ribeye tataki, an onsen egg, and vegan and vegetarian options like an avocado ceviche with quinoa and a heirloom tomato variation. Alessia Giorcelli leads the cocktail programme. Hours vary by day and sometimes by season, so confirm directly before you go.

Diecisieteº has been grilling in Santa Catalina since 2004, at Calle Fábrica 12, and keeps its whole identity around one idea: aged meat cooked over holm-oak charcoal, paired with a list of Spanish wines. The parrilla vasca-style carta opens with grilled olives and aioli, salted or pickled anchovy, and a Caesar salad, before moving into fresh burrata, a salmorejo diecisieteº and a bluefin tuna tartare. The space splits into a terrace, an indoor dining room and a separate reserved area for private lunches and dinners, useful for groups. Book online through the restaurant's own system at diecisietegrados.myrestoo.net.

Bendito Gusto keeps things simple: fresh, handmade Italian pasta cooked al dente, with gluten-free options for anyone who needs them. The set menus stack up from pasta and sauce alone to pasta, sauce, a drink and dessert, and the carta runs to dishes like a four-cheese mezzelune, with tiramisu and chocotorta to finish. It's open Monday to Saturday from midday into the evening and a shorter Sunday lunch service, and reservations go through the restaurant by phone. It's a relaxed, good-value neighbourhood spot rather than a special-occasion table, and the record here is thinner than most of Santa Catalina's other kitchens: there's no listed chef name or opening year to point to.

Xólotl was founded in 2015 by Ceci and Xavi, with Ceci's mother Cecilia later joining the kitchen to sharpen the cooking into proper Mexican home food. The signature move is the tortillas, pressed in-house from nixtamal, the traditional lime-treated corn dough, and they turn up under tacos al pastor, enchiladas verdes, gorditas de chicharrón and a ceviche. The cocktail list runs from a Margarita Premium to a Mezcalita and a Paloma. It runs split lunch and dinner service, Sunday to Thursday until 11pm and Friday and Saturday until half past, and closes Mondays. Book online at xolotl.es/reservas or by phone.

Mola started small in Portixol in 2018, expanded to a Santa Catalina spot near the market in 2021, and later added a third site, Mola in the Club, inside the Mallorca Country Club in Calvià. All three run under Grupo Mola on a Mediterranean-fusion kitchen with international touches and new daily suggestions. The Club location's own menu runs from a Tom Yum soup and tempura prawns with wasabi mayonnaise to a bluefin tuna tartare with tangerine ponzu and a salmon inside-out roll, finishing on a passion-fruit cream with pistachio ice cream, though the Portixol and Santa Catalina cartas may differ. The Club site runs daily from 9am to 10pm; book per location through the group's site.