Last week was very special for Ca n’Eduardo, one of the oldest restaurants in Palma, when it celebrated its 80th anniversary in style.
The restaurant, in a prime location above the La Llonja fish market, was established in 1943 by Antonio Carrasco.
In late 2008, in the middle of the economic crisis, it was taken over by Dubliner Johnny Moloney and two partners and since then, Johnny, a highly acclaimed chef, has very much been the heart and soul of the restaurant with the help of a highly professional team. But Johnny’s dream career while at school was to be an accountant!
“I’ve now been in Mallorca 23 years and I’ve been with Ca n’Eduardo since 2009. I’m now one of the owners and the general manager - I was the head chef until 2018 and then I came front of house. At the time we were looking for a general manager but it was easier to find a head chef. So I’m hardly doing anything in the kitchen now. I give them a hand every now and then if they have to make a sauce or something very special. The whole team is Spanish and my background is in classical French cooking, so there might be something they are not familiar with - something we might have to make for a particular guest for example,” Johnny said.
Key to success
So, what’s been the success of Ca n’Eduardo?
“It’s hard to put your finger on one particular thing. In the restaurant business, everything has to come together. The food, the service, the ambience, location, the treatment of the customer. When customers comes to your restaurant they have to be made to feel at home and comfortable, they don’t feel out of place and that’s a success for a restaurant. When people come in and they feel they’re going to your home; I think Can Ca n’Eduardo has always had that. Any business that’s been open for 80 years is obviously going to have had its ups and downs, it’s not all smooth sailing. You don’t grow year-on-year over 80 years without highs and lows.
"From 1943, the restaurant was on the up and up but then went through a bad spell in the 2000s. Then came the economic crisis and the family just couldn’t keep it going. They had nobody in the family willing to take it over and we were in a position to buy the restaurant and the shares in mid-2008. It wasn’t the best time to have bought a restaurant either, but two partners and I did. We took the gamble and we’re proud to say that it paid off.
“We closed in 2009 to refurbish and it was during that time when I joined them full time as head chef,” he said.
Summer job
But Johnny would not be in Mallorca, never mind at Ca n’Eduardo, if he hadn’t landed a summer job in the kitchens at the Killiney Court Hotel in Dublin.
“I wanted to be an accountant, but I needed a summer job to make some extra cash and I ended up in a kitchen of a very famous hotel. I got hooked. I loved it, the buzz, and when I finished school I went to catering school. Back then, of course, the syllabus at all catering schools in northern Europe was based on classic French cooking, so that’s my background. These days it’s changed a little bit because the cooking in northern Europe has become on par with the French. Years ago it was always France, France, France, but now you’ve got Denmark, Sweden and even Norway which have seen a huge rise in culinary wealth, even the UK and Ireland. They’ve adapted really well to using all the wonderful and varied local produce. They’ve got really good local ingredients and now they’re using them and doing things extremely well.
Upstate New York
“Over the past 15 to 20 years chefs have come to realise they’ve got great ingredients on their doorsteps and they’re using them. You’ve now got this modern Irish, modern English, modern Danish concept of food, which back in my day just didn’t exist.
“That said, I did a lot of seafood work in the States, after having first worked in the south of Ireland round Cork. I did a lot in the States, in upstate New York and on the eastern seaboard and I loved that time.
“So, if I look back on the years in the kitchen, most of it has been spent around seafood, although there were other times when it was a mix, especially in the country house hotel environment which I was in for quite a while. But I’ve always worked with fish and we’re lucky here on an island in the Mediterranean that we’ve got some great great fish and shellfish - the prawns from Soller and Andratx.
“For an island, it’s funny, the price of fish is a little bit more expensive than on the mainland, but maybe that’s because we’re an island and everything is a little bit more expensive. The fishermen obviously have to cover their costs as well, and these costs have gone up across the board,” Johnny said.
“As a business, we’ve tried to cover our rising costs as discreetly as possible. The cost situation is a difficult one because, for example, I have some dishes on the menu which I could easily charge a lot more for. But if you charge a lot more for something, you’re cutting your toes off. You want your customer to come back and repeat and we have a lot of repeat customers. And we want people to feel that they’re getting value for money, that’s the bottom line. Sometimes, with regard to the price of food in a restaurant, as I said at the beginning, you’ve got to look at the whole concept, not just the food that’s on the plate - it’s vital that customers feel that they’re getting good value for money and that’s a thing we try to do. You have to be honest with the client.
Competition
“Yes, there may be mark-ups on wines and beers, but it’s quite small compared to other businesses. Every business is free to charge what they think is correct, but we can’t sell anything at a loss, we’ve got to make something out of all this, otherwise the business just isn’t viable. We’ve got 29 staff now and they’ve all got to be paid, but fortunately we have the business to justify having 29 people working with us. I’d love to have 35, but the way things are going with the shortage of staff, we’re probably better off staying where we are - lean and mean,” he said.
Competition in Palma is getting tougher with more and more restaurants opening.
Change
“I’ve seen it change hugely. Every year different restaurants open up, some open in the same spot where there’d been another while others are completely new. Some survive, some don’t. How do you survive? It’s very difficult to say, We’re very lucky here with the location, which helps, but I think you also have to be faithful to the concept of your restaurant. Our concept here is fresh fish, shellfish, rice dishes, traditional Spanish and Mediterranean cooking, Mallorcan cooking. The kitchen obviously has a little bit of flexibility to change to become more sophisticated and some dishes are more traditional than others. So it’s a mix of tradition and modern, that’s what we’re looking for, but it’s all within the same concept. We not going to start doing seafood pizzas, for example ... ,” Johnny joked.
“We don’t do sushi, that’s not our concept and maybe some restaurants do. They may change because their initial concept didn’t work, but it’s a gamble. We’ve been here for 80 years so perhaps it’s easy to say. I’m sure when they started off in the ‘40s and ‘50s when it was just a small cantina, they had their struggles and tough days, but they stuck with it, the same concept. Even during the economic crisis, they stayed faithful to the concept, which is important because it does not confuse the client. Clients come here knowing what they’re going to get or know what to expect.”
Expensive
But there’s no denying that Palma has become more expensive.
“Like I said, it’s all about value for money. But when you’re working with and offering quality fresh ingredients, it’s costly - I think the customers know that. When they come here, we always tell them the price of any specials.
“But at the end of the day, they’ve got the menu, they can see the prices, it’s the same in any restaurant, and if they are not comfortable with the prices, there’s nothing to stop them from leaving. That’s fair enough.
“But we’re lucky with so many repeat clients, plus we have two seasons, if you like. We’re open all year, we only close on Mondays, and from October to March and April, 70 percent of our clients are local residents and 30 percent tourists. From March to October, it’s the reverse. That said, and I think this is because of all the new boutique hotels in Palma, we’re seeing more city-break visitors on the weekends throughout the year, not to mention a marked increase in Americans and Asians. We’ve even got some tables booked for Australians and South Africans and they’re not off the yachts, they are here in Mallorca on holiday.
Open all year
“Also, with the kitchen being open all day, we appeal to a lot of people in Palma on business. They can come in at any time, leave their suitcases, have a meal and then head straight to the airport,” Johnny explained.
“But while we’re attracting a wider market, people are much more savvy, everyone’s a chef,” he jokes. “I guess that’s thanks to TV and things like Masterchef, so you can’t let your guard down. And then there’s social media. The vast majority of new customers have already checked us out on social media and have made a clear decision to come,” he added.
As a devout West Ham and Real Mallorca fan, the restaurant and the Palma club have a long-standing relationship and he said that helps too.
“We used to do their VIP catering. Now it’s just special events but it works well.”
So, cheers to another 80 years.