Menorcan baking smells of almond, wood-fired ovens and village festivals. It’s a simple, honest pastry tradition, inherited from the wider Balearic and Catalan world, once made at home for big occasions and kept alive today by a handful of bakeries with generations behind them. It goes with coffee, fills the suitcase home and keeps for days: the perfect edible souvenir.
This guide explains what each sweet is, which are the most characteristic of the island, and where to buy them freshly made.
The essentials
- Almond ones: carquinyols (crunchy), amargos (with bitter almond). Almond is the queen of island baking.
- Sweet pastry: pastissets (with icing sugar), crespells (shaped biscuits).
- The fluffy one: the ensaïmada, a Balearic product also made in Menorca.
- Savoury ones (note): formatjades and rubiols are little pies; despite the name, Menorcan formatjades are usually filled with meat and sobrassada.
- Where to buy them: village bakeries and pastry shops, especially in the centre of the island.
The almond sweets
If Menorca had a sweet flavour, it would be almond. Two classics prove it:
- Carquinyols. Dry, very crunchy almond biscuits, cousins of the Catalan carquinyolis and the Italian cantuccini. They’re strongly associated with Es Mercadal, in the centre of the island. Dipped in a sweet wine or coffee, they’re addictive.
- Amargos. Almond sweets that owe their name to the bitter almond they originally contained. Soft inside, they’re a Christmas tradition, though today you’ll find them all year round.
Sweet pastry and the ensaïmada
- Pastissets. Tender pastries, often flower-shaped, dusted with icing sugar. Of Christmas origin, they’re among the most recognisable.
- Crespells. Sweet-pastry biscuits in various shapes (stars, flowers, circles), traditionally baked as a family.
- Ensaïmada. The fluffy spiral of lard-enriched dough, the Balearic sweet par excellence. Although it’s most famous as a Mallorcan product, it’s also made with skill in Menorca’s bakeries.
A word about “formatjades”
The name is misleading: despite starting with format- (cheese), Menorcan formatjades aren’t a sweet and don’t necessarily contain cheese — they’re usually savoury little pies filled with pork or lamb and sobrassada, typical of Easter. Their relatives, the rubiols, are half-moon pies that can be filled with sweet or savoury things. We mention this so you don’t get a surprise: if you’re after something sweet, go for the carquinyols, pastissets or amargos.
Where to buy them
The island’s baking heart is in Es Mercadal, where artisan bakeries with plenty of history survive, such as Cas Sucrer or Can Pons, which make carquinyols, amargos, pastissets and ensaïmadas and sell both in store and online. Beyond that, almost any village bakery or pastry shop has its own version of these classics, and the markets are a good place to discover them.
As always, buy as fresh as possible and ask about artisan production. The dry almond sweets —carquinyols and amargos— travel especially well; the ensaïmada, in its cardboard box, also travels surprisingly well if you handle it with care.
Our take
If you take home just one sweet, make it some carquinyols from Es Mercadal: they crunch, they taste of almond and they survive the journey without losing their charm. Buy at the bakery, where the product is freshly made and the money sustains a craft passed from parents to children. And save the first one for the trip home, with a coffee: there are few sweeter ways to say goodbye to the island.
