Restaurante Ca'n Costa Valldemossa — Restaurant in Valldemossa

We had really looked forward to this restaurant in Valldemossa. The photos made it look authentic, rustic, charming. In reality? We walked straight into a tourist trap in disguise.

The scam begins before you’ve even glanced at the menu: olives, bread, and aioli — all mandatory, all individually priced. Nothing says hospitality like being charged three times for the privilege of sitting down.

Then came the service, if you can call it that. We had 6–7 different waiters over the course of the evening, which meant no one had the faintest idea what anyone else was doing. And not once did a single one of them stop by our table to ask if everything was okay or if we needed anything (spoiler: we did).

After the first course, we tried to order wine and water for the main. Lots of waving later, a new waiter finally appeared, dropped off the wine list… and vanished into thin air. That was the last we ever saw of him, or any other waiter, until our mains suddenly arrived. And by “arrived” I mean they were flung onto the table by a waiter running past at full speed, gone again before we could even open our mouths. The result? Our mains were eaten completely dry. No wine, no water, nothing.

As for the food: some of the vegetables still had sand on them, which added a really “nice” crusty crunch to the meal. And my girlfriend’s entrecôte, ordered medium/rare, was so raw I half-expected it to get up and walk back to the fields.

The table next to us had their own horror show. They arrived two minutes after us, waited 35 minutes, and were served the wrong dishes. Three waiters then fumbled over what was happening, assuring them their actual order would be out “in two minutes.” Fifteen minutes later, another waiter arrived to say, once again, “just two more minutes”. By the time their food finally showed up, nearly an hour had passed. They did receive an apology, but not a single gesture to make up for the disaster – no glass of wine, no small plate of ham or cheese, nothing. Just “sorry,” and good luck waiting.

They get two stars (and not one) only because the portion sizes were decent and the prices, somehow, weren’t as outrageous as they could have been. But...

The anticipation was like the moment the Tay Tay concert tix go on sale. It's a beautiful place, good service, and on this night, really lovely, better-when-they-kept-it-local music. And the local vegetable dish "tumbet" was yum. The salad was a bit weird, but fine. The almond cake, a local speciality, was pretty good, too. So, why the 2*? No, they didn't pour hot olive oil down my trousers. It was the paella. This wonderful dish deserves ecclesiastical respect. And here, it was close to heresy. The rice was good enough. No saffron. No socarrat...none. This is as central to a dish being called paella, as electricity to a Tay Tay concert. It should be a task for the waiter to extract it from the pan; the crunchy, sticky rice pieces gluing themselves to your dentures like staligtights. Not only all this, but the seafood served was dreadful. For starters, it should be added towards the end of the cook, so it arrives just cooked. This was stewed like a brisket. The seemingly once frozen prawn and langoustine as dry as the interior of this beautiful island. The lack of squid inexcusable, in a land surrounded by great squid. The mussels so overcooked they sat sullen, embarrassed to be seen in the state, joined by shelless mussels, seemingly from a jar. The tiny crab piecs so small that they held no meat whatsoever. It was a €36 catastrophe. So, 2* seems pretty generous. But the rest was pretty good. Please, guys, some local, fresh seafood added towards the end of the cook. Enough heat to ensure a proper socerrat, a little saffron too, please. It's so easy, the great people of Spain have been excelling at it...

I have never left a bad review in my life, but unfortunately this has to be the first. My fiancé and I have spent the last 4 days in Valldemossa, and this was sadly the worst meal of the trip (despite being recommended by a local). Normally I never complain at restaurants, but our dry-aged steaks that we ordered to be cooked medium came out burnt and well-done. The vegetables that were served with them were also undercooked with no seasoning. The appetizer shishito peppers we got were also completely unseasoned - we had the same dish at Can Uetam the other night and they were delicious + topped with flaky sea salt.

When I kindly let the waiter know that the steak was really hard to chew and WAY overcooked, he acknowledged it but said/did nothing else to correct the situation. We even overheard the table next to us complain about the same dish. We ate maybe half of it and were of course going to pay for it anyway, but an offer to make it right would have gone a long way. To top it off, our waiter never even came back to the table after taking away our half-eaten meals. Instead, a separate waiter came over to handle our bill and asked us how the food was (not good). What a waste of $100+ euros. We are truly so disappointed in this experience, as we approached the situation very kindly and nothing was done. Probably the worst service I’ve had this entire week in Mallorca.

Not to mention - we were also getting swarmed by bees the entire time and there are no candles to ward off the bugs, which just added to the...