I've been to a lot of the restaurants here in Formentera. Most of them have been great honestly. A…read morefew have not. But for the most part it's hard to find a restaurant here where you don't eat well. Having said that, Quimera is for me, the best place on the island to eat. It is certainly the best place I've tried. Let me start this review by going back in time a little bit:
Some years ago there was a restaurant here called Can Dani. It was very good and very popular, especially when the good people from Michelin decided to give Can Dani a star. That's right: there was a restaurant on this tiny island that had a Michelin star. In fact, it was the only restaurant in all the Baleares to be given that distinction. Very impressive I know. The restaurant and since closed, and their chef has moved on....and she now plies her trade at Quimera, the small restaurant located in Hostal La Savina.
Quimera is very understated but don't underestimate this place, it is very VERY good. Hostal La Savina is actually very well known for its cocktails (for my money, it has cocktails on par with Hotel Cala Saona, which makes the best cocktails on the island for me) which is great because if you eat at the restaurant you can order one of their specialty cocktails if you so choose. There is also a very good wine selection as you might expect. But the food here, when you order something, you don't feel at all like you're in a restaurant in Formentera. The dishes are different, and the presentation is on a completely different level. Something else you might expect from a chef who was in charge of a Michelin starred restaurant.
We ordered the "lamina" of prawns to start, which is a relatively popular dish here in Spain but I don't recall it ever being better than here at Quimera. Mango, lime and pistachio give it all types of flavor, which is impressive for such a light dish. The scallops were also incredible. They come with lavender, parmesan, and almonds. Absolutely exquisite. But both of these starters were just that: starters. They certainly leave you wanting more because they don't give you a large portion. That's ok. We ordered the lobster and the beef as the main dishes.
The lobster came out first, which is for lack of a better word, deconstructed. As you can see from my photo there is grilled lobster tail, a lobster soup, a sauce for your tail and bread that also has lobster on it. On the menu it says "lobster in all it's essence." This couldn't be more true. Not to mention the fact that it was absolutely AMAZING. The soup alone i would buy and just keep in my house for later. Everything was so good. Our final main course was the beef, which comes in a very rich sauce with sweetbread, blue cheese, and fruits, which i'm assuming help comprise the sauce. Also RIDICULOUS. so succulent and juicy. The beef is cooked to perfection also so you don't have to feel like the sauce is doing all the heavy lifting.
The funny thing about the entire night was, we were expecting to pay much more than we did. I don't quite remember the tally but it was much less than we thought we would be paying when we decided to go. I don't particularly care about the price of a restaurant if I eat well, and you can't eat much better than this place. You should certainly try it out when you're here!
