Moriarty Gintonic Club — Restaurant in Ciutadella

Let's put things in context: there are plenty of good restaurants in Menorca, including some avarage ones that will give you a three-course lunch for €15, with a very decent vegetable soup, grilled sole and a dessert of crema catalana. So when you go to a fine dinning restaurant, where the price of just one tapas (not the main course) can exceed 20 EUR, you expect complexity, creativity, balance of flavours, decent plating and a fine service. At Moriarty, apart from the beautiful ambience, which seems to be the main reason for their pretentiousness, and prices, we got none of that. They play the card of a respectable restaurant, you are greeted at the entrance by a slightly pretentious owner or service manager, but after that all they bring on the plate is a lot of amateurism, spiced up by confused service, asking you if you would like some dessert or coffee while you are still waiting for half of the dishes you ordered. We ordered the house croquettes, tuna tataki, razor clams and cannelloni with foie gras. Underneath the warm house croquettes and clams, they had slipped a few leaves of lettuce, by then completely wilted, which is an elementary-school mistake that a restaurant like this should not indulge in, as the accompanying fresh vegetables need to stay crisp and fresh. There is no question of any sauce, reduction, espuma, anything which would add the essential acidity and freshness that is needed. The tuna tataki was on a par with any average Japanese fast food restaurant, the duck cannelloni was similarly unimaginative, and one expects at least a bit of creativity and excess in the six razor clams (almost 20 euros!), which are sold fresh at the neighbouring Mercadona supermarket, and which really don't require a top chef to prepare in less than five minutes.

It is a restaurant of fake sublimity, but one that severely...

Moriarty's was recommended to me by a local, as a gin and tapas palace! All three words were accurate. There was gin, there was tapas, and it was housed in the most beautiful catacomb under a palace just off the Placa des Born, in Ciutadella. The main restaurant which is a wonderfully restored cavern, gives way to a stunning open air courtyard and garden. With no hint of this from the street, it was a real treat to be sitting down to eat in this wonderful venue.

The tapas; is simply some of the best food I've had in a long time, anywhere. A simple menu to navigate, where you tick the choices you fancy, takes out a lot of stress of choosing. The waiter recommended 5/6 for our party of 4, we went for 7 individual dishes, this was the perfect size really. however, if I'm honest, I wanted to sacrifice dignity a little after the first dish, and order much more! Utterly delicious. If the Iberian secret is still on the menu upon your visit, start there. We as a group were so blown away by the food and the venue, we ordered all 6 deserts and finished all in moments!

The gin, there is indeed a large selection, local and otherwise but this isn't simply a gin bar. There is a full selection of drinks and a generous wine menu, of which the staff have a good knowledge.

We were well fed and well watered by the time we left. I fell in love with the island a little during my stay, and full intend to come back again. Moriarty's will be top of the list for another dinner out in town. Book yourself happy...

The venue and setting, especially in the garden are beautiful. The meal was going well until the mains arrived! The waitress put the two dishes down on the other side of the table and walked off without taking the empty starter plates away or giving clean cutlery. At first we assumed she'd gone to get something but it became immediately clear she wasn't coming back. I understand that tapas comes at various times but we had starters and mains, not tapas. If she thought we'd not finished our starters because there was a small amount of salad on the serving plate, then why put our mains down? The same happened on a table nearby but they'd not finished their starters so the mains sat there getting cold!! Once we started our mains we were unfortunately umonpressed. One was the duck cannelloni which was very salty, the other, the beef cheeks started very well with the first of the two large pieces of beef being cheek, delicious and falling apart like it should. However the second piece was questionable it was even cheek as it took a good push to get the fork in and a few slices with the knife to cut it. Completely different to the other piece and to any beef cheek I've had before. Unfortunately this place promised a lot but really didn't deliver. Such a shame as we had planned to go back for our last night...