Eurofile Misa Braseria

A chocolate marquise at chef Marc Fosh’s Misa Braseria in Mallorca.

The beautiful Balearic island of Mallorca is Europe’s Florida, a one-size-fits-all holiday destination par excellence. Scan the arrival boards at Palma’s Son Sant Joan airport, one of the busiest in Europe, and almost no major European city goes missing, which means Mallorca is the perfect place to see what Europeans like to eat on vacation.

There’s no better place to find this out than the just-opened Misa Braseria in Palma de Mallorca, the island’s largest town. This great-looking new brasserie with black leather chairs, white walls and wooden shelves filled with glass jars of preserves is the latest restaurant of Mallorca’s best-known chef, the Englishman Marc Fosh, 47.

Fosh started his career at 17 as an apprentice at London’s Greenhouse restaurant, got a “classical French style culinary education” while working with Bernard Gaume at the Chelsea Room in the Carleton Hotel and then moved to Spain in 1991. His original plan was to take a working sabbatical in Spain — he’d landed a spot in the San Sebastian kitchen of the three-star chef Martin Berasategui but after a few months was offered the top spot at Reads Hotel in Mallorca.

“Like many people, when I heard Mallorca, I thought buckets-and-spades and sun-burned shoulders, or cheap holidays, so I was surprised by its beauty when I visited and decided it would be an interesting challenge to run a hotel restaurant on the island,” Fosh says. At Reads, Fosh won a Michelin star — the first ever awarded to an English chef working in Spain — and stayed for 13 years before going out on his own in 2009 with Simply Fosh, a stylish gastronomic restaurant at Palma’s chic Convento de la Missió hotel, and a popular small-plate regional Spanish restaurant, Tasca de Blanquerna, also in Palma.

Simply Fosh at the Convento de la Missió hotel.

At Misa Braseria, Fosh has shrewdly designed a menu of sophisticated Mediterranean comfort food to appeal to all nationalities. “Due to my background and experience, I have a real advantage as a chef in Mallorca because I understand what affluent Europeans like to eat today,” Fosh explains. “My Mediterranean is the whole sea — Spain first soccer shoes, but also France, Italy, Greece, North Africa and the Middle East.” Fosh’s menu changes seasonally, but the starters, like the sublime shrimp-stuffed ravioli in a light crab-and-sherry sauce and a succulent suquet (Catalan style fish soup with fresh mussels), that a friend and I sampled at an early summer dinner showed off a decidedly French culinary precision and passion for produce. Fosh’s cosmopolitanism was apparent in a marinated sea bass with roasted red pepper salad, preserved lemons and argan oil; a feta cheese and marjoram garnished Greek salad; and rabbit-and-bacon terrine with onion, apricot and thyme chutney.

“Mallorca’s changing food scene is very much a reflection of major trends in the European diet,” Fosh says. “Europeans are more health- and quality-conscious than they’ve ever been, and there’s a fascination with authentic local produce. In Mallorca, this means olive oil — the best on the island comes from Solivellas, but also local cheeses, charcuterie, fish, fruit and vegetables. At Misa, my idea is to serve people food they know and love, but with a little twist here and there.”

So it’s not a surprise to find crowd-pleasing main courses like lobster-and-monkfish rice with saffron shellfish consommé or roast chicken with seasonal vegetables on the menu. But Fosh also teases more venturesome palates with dishes like salt-cod with cockscombs, choucroute and quince purée or roasted confit of duck with arugula pesto and beet-root risotto. The rosemary glazed veal shank with olive-oil potato purée for two is worldly farmhouse food at its very best, too.

The tapas bar at Tasca de Blanquerna.

Observing the eating habits of Europe from his adopted perch, Fosh surmises that the distinctive differences in eating habits from one European country to another survive. “The Spanish love fat, while the Germans are very worried by it,” he says. “The French are miserable without good bread, the Italians insist on pasta, and even though the British have evolved a lot, in the past you could never serve them fish on the bone and they’re still reticent about rabbit. Most Scandinavians would prefer that you go easy on the garlic, too.

“If Europeans have one thing in common when they sit down at the table today, though, it’s a wild love of Mediterranean cooking,” continues Fosh, who is married to a Spanish Basque woman and who has been scouting a location for a future restaurant in Germany (Mallorca is hugely popular with the Germans), where he’s recently been doing the business-class menus for Lufthansa and where he is even more of a star than in Spain.

And before getting back to his pots and pans, this admirer of New York restaurateur Danny Meyer — “His service culture is terrific, and I just read his book, which is very inspiring” — shared his favorite Mallorcan restaurant: “On Sundays when we’re closed, I often head to El Bungalow on the beach in Can Pastilla for a simple family lunch. It’s like a very basic fisherman’s cottage with two fairly ordinary terraces right next to the sea. They serve simply grilled fish and really tasty rice dishes. Try the black rice and stir in a spoonful of rich garlic aioli.”

El Bungalow, Esculls 2, Ciudad Jardin, Palma de Mallorca; 011-34-971-262-738.

Misa Braseria, Can Maçanet 1, Palma de Mallorca; 011-34-971-595-301.

Simply Fosh, Carrer de la Missió 7A, Palma de Mallorca; 011-34-971-720-114.

Tasca de Blanquerna, Blanquerna 6, Palma de Mallorca; 011-34-971-290-108.