US Open Restaurant, Manacor
You don’t have to be a tennis player or even visit the interesting multi-sports Rafa Nadal Museum to eat lunch at the tennis supremo’s expanding centre in Manacor.
The centre’s former Sport Café has had a makeover and is now the US Open Restaurant, open daily for breakfast and lunch, but not dinner.
The US Open Restaurant is light and airy, with floor-to-ceiling glass on one side, affording views of some of the Rafa Nadal Academy tennis facilities. Framed posters from US Open tournaments hang on one wall. In fine weather, you can take a table on the terrace. We sat indoors at a table by the window to take advantage of the air conditioning on a warm day.
Along with the new look and name, the US Open Restaurant has an improved à la carte menu, compiled with the aid of Rafa’s nutritionist. Expect some healthy choices if that’s what you want, and some dishes cooked on the Josper grill installed three months ago. The restaurant no longer offers what was a bargain menu of the day in its Sport Café days.
Our servers, Kenya and Matthew, couldn’t have been more helpful with my coeliac father. Every dish on the menu is marked with the relevant allergens but he still needs verbal confirmation that what he’s going to eat won’t give him a gluten reaction.
He enjoyed a fresh-from-the-oven gluten-free roll while we had sourdough bread with olives and alioi. Starters include guacamole, charcoal-grilled aubergine, and potato churros with spicy sauce. The three of us shared the cobb salad from the menu section entitled ‘The Orchard’. The five salads range in price from 13,50 € to 16.50 €; ours made a plentiful shared, healthy starter for three people.
Other menu sections are poke, tacos, pastas, pinsas (the latter two available gluten-free), and comfort food (meat and fish dishes). Two of us had Josper-grilled salmon with a topping of citrus, nuts, and herb dressing, served with home-made skinny fries. Kenya arranged for my father’s fries to be cooked in a separate pan to avoid cross-contamination. The other dish was glazed sea bass with orange and almond alioli. Although I prefer my salmon a little less ‘done’, the Josper cooking made it flavourful. Side dishes are available.
Desserts include the locally made Mermui ice cream (6,50 €), which my dad enjoyed. Key lime pie and grilled pineapple with coconut and mead (both 7 €) were our other desserts.
The range of drinks includes kombucha (2,80 €), gluten-free beer, and an alcohol-free beer, as well as the usual alcoholic and soft drinks.
The Rafa Nadal complex has the benefit of a car park – and the potential of a sighting of the man himself practising for a return to competitive tennis next year.
Photos: Jan Edwards
Prices correct at time of writing.