We were coming back from a beachy walk along Las Canteras when we saw the menu, a piece of paper discreetly taped up on the glass door of the tiny dining room: La Cocina Abierta. Always on the lookout for something new to eat, I was curious, and the menu contained everything tempting: not too many options, interesting (but not obnoxious) combinations, traditional home cooking that seemed fun.
We went back to eat a few days later, and from the moment of welcome to the final forkfuls of dessert it was a treat.
La Cocina Abierta is a two person operation, run by an Italian husband and wife team, the husband in the kitchen, the wife front of house. Eating here is an experience of cozy joy. The kitchen, as per its name, is open, and sitting at the corner table, nursing our glasses of wine, we could witness the simplicity and expertise of the one cook in the kitchen. And what that one cook produces is delightful.
The first time we ate here, we started with an appetizer of pumpkin soufflé with cheese (surprising in the best way, and the perfect size to share).
We moved on to two deeply savory mains: tagliatelle with chicken liver and goat stew with red wine, rosemary, juniper, and chocolate. They were perfect: the goat as tender as it should be, the chocolate rosemary sauce startling but wonderful, the chicken liver pasta exactly balanced, full of flavor without being gamey.
The restaurant offers a rotating selection of home baked cakes or pies for dessert: that first day lemon meringue was available, the meringue towering over the bright yellow lemon curd, a fine ending.
You know you’ve eaten out of a good kitchen with a solid grasp of ingredients when you can eat this amount of food and feel pleasantly full, but nowhere near the cusp of indigestion. This was the case here, and so we did that rare thing and went back to eat at La Cocina Abierta again on our next visit to the island.
This time, we wanted to test out a different angle of the menu: lighter, zingier, but just as fun.
We started off sharing the potato octopus lentil salad. Nestled within individual endive leaves laid out as a flower, the lentil salad was simple but well seasoned, embracing a small pile of ideally tender octopus tossed with boiled potatoes and dressing.
As last time, we then shared a pasta and a stew: what the menu calls Rigatoni artigianali alla “carbonara” di mare takes classic carbonara technique – egg yolks, pepper, and parmesan as a foundational sauce, tossed with hot pasta – but omits the pork, replacing it with a generous topping of shellfish instead: clams, mussels, calamari, baby octopus and one large generous prawn, tangled into the pasta and egg sauce like jewels in the sand.
The chicken stew we had alongside is, according to the menu, an old family recipe. Simmered in milk, vinegar, and a pile of slow cooked onions, it’s satisfying and good (although if we are being perfectly honest we preferred the goat stew the first time around - always just a question of personal preferences!).
We capped this round off with a tasting of several of the housemade cakes of the day: the apple pie and zuppa inglese in particular were a happy end to the meal.
It’s not often that I walk away from a restaurant (twice!) excited and nattering on and on about how good the food was, but this was what La Cocina Abierta offered. The facts that the welcome was warm, the location by the beach lovely, and the space cozy were just the final cherries of an experience we highly recommend to anyone finding themselves on this side of the island.
Info: The space is small, only 6 tables, reservations required. Appetizers between 9 and 14 euros, mains between 17 and 25 euros.
