Es Ca Marí — Bullit de Peix Experience
Bullit de peix — a slow-simmered fisherman's stew of local catch, potatoes and saffron, served with rice cooked in the golden broth — is Formentera's defining dish, and Es Ca Marí, a sun-faded terrace restaurant on the road between Es Pujols and El Pilar, is one of the most honest places left to eat it.
The dish itself
Bullit de peix arrives in two acts: first a wide clay pot of whole fish — whatever came off the boats that morning, typically scorpionfish, grouper or John Dory — braised with potatoes, garlic and local olive oil in a saffron-stained broth. The fish is lifted out and the remaining liquid is used to cook short-grain rice, which arrives as a second course, deeply savoury and brick-orange.
It is a meal that demands time and company. Order a carafe of local white wine from the Ibizan cooperative, tear bread into the broth and let lunch extend well past three o'clock — the Formenteran way.
The setting and the local context
Es Ca Marí is not a glossy destination restaurant; it is a family-run spot with plastic chairs, hand-written menus and a terrace shaded by a corrugated roof hung with fishing nets. That is precisely the point. The food is cooked by people who have been making this dish for generations.
Beyond Es Ca Marí, look for bullit de peix at Can Rafalet in Es Caló de Sant Agustí, a tiny fishing cove on the north coast where you can watch the boats that caught your lunch bobbing at anchor while you eat.
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