An Unhurried Family Day

Silve Pons/Ciutadella - Holiday days, days without hurrying, days to enjoy slow food... Menorca naturally lends itself to this rhythm, and Ciutadella, fortunately, still keeps a few places where you don’t hear the clatter of plates crashing into each other, where waiters don’t shoot past you like Formula 1 cars, and where any rush is left at the door.

An unhurried family day starts with getting up late. And when you get up late, you wake up hungry and not very keen to cook. So that day we decided to go out for breakfast. Today we chose an emblematic name in Ciutadella: l’Aurora. Right in the middle of Plaça d’Alfons III, known as de ses Palmeres, des Crespell or des Rellotge (in Ciutadella we like to give squares unofficial names), which is the one that welcomes you into the old town if you come from Maó. L’Aurora has a large, very popular terrace and a long menu of tapas and dishes. But what we want is breakfast, so we sit inside, looking for the cool air conditioning.

Soon we have on the table some classic toast with juice, an ensaïmada to dip into a good café con leche, pastries… But we want to try something different, something that “tastes like summer”. And that’s when they surprise us with a slice of toast, served in three pieces, with salmon, brie cheese and sprouts. What a treat! Ideal for sharing, light, fresh and very tasty – so much so that we had to order another one because, as we like to say, the first one “barely touched the plate”.

The unhurried family day went on with each of us doing our own things, coming and going until lunchtime. Together we decided to eat at another emblematic place in town: La Roma. Any of the establishments in the Cafè Balear group has its charm, but for us La Roma keeps the feel of a little haven in the middle of the town. The first time I saw a pizza coming out of a wood-fired oven was, in fact, here. An old house in the historic centre that preserves the sober charm of humble Menorcan buildings, from the almangrat floor to the rough, characteristic wooden wainscoting.

It’s a blessing to sit in a dining room where you’re not bumping elbows with the people at the next table, and where there is peace, lots of peace – exactly what we were looking for this summer midday. For mains we ordered pizzas and pasta for the younger ones, and cod and beef for the adults. But in our family what we like (what we really love) is sharing, helping ourselves from the middle of the table. And that’s what the starters were for. Some delicious croquettes with a leek sauce and what we enjoyed most as a family: steamed mussels! You can’t go wrong! Dipping mussels from the port of Maó in the smooth allioli they brought us is a wonderfully refreshing pleasure. Paired with a Godello white wine from Monterrei, they make the perfect starter to get the conversation flowing and for young and old alike to share the morning’s anecdotes.

The unhurried day ended with a siesta – xubec, as we say here – because by dusk you could already feel the change of pace, and summer nights are meant to be lived intensely. In the end, the night was lively, as it should be, but we still managed to enjoy a family day without rush and some wonderfully unhurried meals.