Béns d'Avall Restaurant — Restaurant in Sóller

Preface: this was our first Michelin Star experience, so please accept our biases accordingly. For those with a very refined palette… my apologies. For those without (like us)… maybe skip this one.

First and foremost, the views from the seating area are, indeed, phenomenal. We got a table right at the edge of the patio and loved the expansive sea views. Photos attached.

Walking in, the experience felt very put together. We were asked whether we wanted a taxi for the end of our dinner (nice touch) and whether we wanted a pre-dinner drink (also nice).

At our seats is the expansive 13-course menu, in English, that looks spectacular. Strangely enough, 6 of the 13 are desserts. Halfway through our drink, the waiter brings out the very extensive wine menu.

Here’s where things get a bit tricky. Two courses in, the waiter takes our drink orders. I ask about the wine pairing. He says he will get the somme to explain the pairing menu to us. Next thing I know, on the third course, the somme brings out 18 glasses and is ready to pour me something. We interject and ask whether he can explain it first. Why yes, he says, it’s 9 wines, one for every dish. He doesn’t explain pricing, which ended up being a bit of an unexpected 90€ upcharge (per person).

Long story short, we somehow end up with only 7 wines, four are whites (not bad… Chardonnay was very good), one is red (only one? But fairly good), and two are dessert (both overly sweet, but that’s just me). Where did the other two go? Yo no se.

The food was… good. Weird, not great, but good. Each bite left us saying “hmmm… that was… interesting.” Think sea ray with ice cream, or savory watermelon soup, or a big wooden spoon with one apricot slice, etc etc etc.

There wasn’t a bite that felt amazing… everything was just… good and interesting. Like another reviewer wrote - it lacked the wow factor.

Service was fairly good. Between some dishes it was very prompt (and almost felt rushed as I tried to finish my wine in big gulps), between others it felt slightly too long (we had to flag the waiter down after 3 attempts to get the bill… maybe this is just standard in Spain).

Our bill ended up being 380€, and that’s with one wine pairing.

Overall, I’m iffy on the price to benefit ratio here. I’ll probably use this as an excuse not to go to a Michelin restaurant again.

TLDR: If you’re reading this review, you’re trying to maximize your Mallorcan dining experience and you’re not a die hard foodie. If so, my recommendation would be to skip the highbrow pretense of Bens and instead go to one of the upscale restaurants in Soller (like...

Reserved a table a couple of months ago to enjoy a Michelin star experience with the family. We’ve been living on Mallorca more than 10 years and trying out dozens Michelin star and Michelin recommended restaurants. According to my experience this restaurant cannot be even recommended by the Michelin. We arrived and were kindly sat down. Straight away sommelier offered wine, cava or champagne to start with; although no one even tried to explain if the wine pairing was available for the tasting menu at all. Anyway, we ordered a bottle of champagne. Around 50 minutes passed until the waiters started serving small appetizers after we finished the bottle of champagne. By the way, we were not explained regarding the tasting menu, the concept of the restaurant in general. The first appetizer was accidentally dropped on the hair and the dress of our friend. A manager (owner) appeared, said: “We are very sorry” and suddenly started cleaning the hair with the alcohol tissues without asking for permission. At the same time blaming the waiter in front of us. We mentioned twice that we will clean the hair and dress in the bathroom but the manager kept cleaning the hair saying “todo bien”. And then sommelier appeared offering another bottle as nothing happened. Really really wrong timing, sir! While dealing with the hair, a second appetizer appeared - a croquet. Which was left only for our friend whose hair was damaged. Eventually, she left to wash her hair at the bathroom for 20 minutes. The appetizer was left on the table even when she came back. What makes the story weird is that the management decided to keep the same waiter for our table. Just to make it clear - things happen sometimes and the waiter is not blamed at all in this situation. But what makes you absolutely speechless is the management taking unprofessional and irrational decisions how to rectify the problem occurred. When finally our friend went to speak with the manager (owner) in order to find out how they were planning to solve the issue, nothing was proposed. Not even a simple official apology. Apart from that, the owner got aggressive, switched to Spanish language, and said if we don’t like something we can leave. What we apparently did. Other guests who witnessed this situation demonstrated their support to us by applauses when leaving. Badly trained personnel and useless management. Service doesn’t correspond to the Michelin star,...

A Michelin star restaurant should be a flawless experience. Sadly this was not.

The food and setting were great. Everything we were hoping for. But our celebration lunch was marred by our arrival experience, where we were informed that regardless of the fact that two of our party had to cancel at the last minute, we would be charged the full price for 12 because that was what we reserved for. At the price point we are paying this seemed an unforgivable misstep in their delivery of hospitality. Clearly they are just in business to make money.

These restaurant owners would be well advised to buy a copy of Will Guidara’s “Unreasonable Hospitality” and study it well. What Will and his team identified at their restaurant, 11Madison Park, (which was eventually recognized as the number one restaurant in the world in 2017) was that great food with great service in a perfect setting is not enough. What makes the difference between the good and the great is how you make people feel. And with this abrupt welcome we were made to feel like participants in a transaction, not guests at one of the world’s finest restaurants.

Having read other reviews for Ben’s D’Avail and I see that this transactional approach is a recurring theme with this business.

The restaurant did surprise us with an unexpected Birthday Cake for my sister in addition to the multi-course wine paired dinner which we were enjoying. It was a nice and totally unexpected gesture which almost dipped into the realm of unreasonable hospitality, until we realized that they just added this store bought cake to the bill and marked it up to €120, adding to their profits including the extra lunches we had to pay for.

I heard from my family who live on Mallorca that this is a common problem with the locals - they just grab for money without thinking about the way this damages their relationship with their clients. We would never go back, and maybe that’s not important to them, but that’s not how I would want my restaurant to...