Formentera’s cuisine is all about traditions, local products, the sea, rain-fed farming, wine and a lot of flavour.

Formentera’s typical cuisine of Formentera tells us a lot about  how traditional life was like,  its main products are indigenous, due to the island’s isolation that made commerce more difficult.

The shortage of products combined with a good use of quality raw materials, such as fish, has creativity as a key point to create rich traditional dishes that we can continue to enjoy today.

Typical dishes of Formentera:

• Calamars a la bruta or fried squid in its ink.
• Frit de polp or fried octopus.
• Amanida pagesa, a peasant salad with or without peix sec (dried fish).
• Bullit de peix (fish stew with potatoes).
• Greixonera (a pudding made of ensaimada, a spiral shaped sweet bun with powdered sugar on top).
• Flaó (fresh cheese cake with mint).
• Orelletes (sweet aniseed pastries).

Local products:

• Dried fish or peix sec. In the old days, fishermen dried the fish in order to keep it longer, conserving it for months. Today it is the star ingredient of the amanida pagesa, the peasant salad.
• High quality honey, thanks to the rain-fed flora and the absence of chemicals. It is usually made from rosemary or frígola (thyme).
• Fresh goat and sheep cheese made in a traditional way.
• Liquid salt without additives. High quality natural salt due to the oxygenation, filtration and mineralization of ​​Formentera’s sea, maximised by the effect of the oceanic posidonia of the marine reserve.
• Dried figs. A pantry staple, with an intense flavor and a great aroma due to its preparation with anise and bay leaf. It is usually accompanied with almonds and cheese.
• Homemade herbal liqueur. It is made from the aromatic herbs that are on the island, with thyme (frígola) being the most common.
• The wine. Formentera has almost 80 hectares of vineyards and a great wine tradition. In many houses the vi pagés or peasant wine is made for self-consumption.
• The bescuit. A long-baked bread that needs to be hydrated before consuming due to its toas ted and dry consistency. It is one of the main ingredients of the amanida pagesa or peasant salad.

You can find a large number of restaurants that offer all these typical dishes throughout the island, we highly recommend you try some during your holidays, and you can also find the typical products of the island in various shops and supermarkets. Enjoy!