Since opening in 1991, Mallorca has become an institution. The decor is from another era. The playlist is a charming mix of easy listening meets European vacation club music. An all-male staff wears a variation on the tuxedo and serves patrons with a formality like that chronicled in midcentury American novels.

Far from the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, this South Side corner is more often a stage for hammered college kids, horns honking, or the urgent siren of an ambulance on a Saturday night.

Inside, it's a respite from this. Mallorca offers intimate dining with tables tucked within a labyrinth of rooms. Hexagon-tiled floors and hand-painted tile walls remind diners of its Spanish inspiration, and the outdoor patio is lovely, with canvas sails for shade, low lights and lush vines.

Owner Antonio Pereira moved the restaurant from Passaic, N.J., to Pittsburgh nearly 25 years ago. The Portuguese native brought with him 10 employees -- two still work as servers -- and a continental menu with just enough dishes to seem Spanish or Portuguese, with red sauce dishes for die-hard Italians. Mr. Pereira and his partner Fausto Simoes are also behind Ibiza Tapas and Wine Bar that opened in 2005.

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If only the food were better. Dinner starts with a spongy French loaf served with diner-style butter in individually wrapped pats. It continues with an iceberg salad drizzled with Thousand Island unless you stage an intervention to ask for something else.

Portuguese sausage is an appetizer special, arriving on a clay pig engulfed in flame. Once the fire dies down, a server transfers the linguiçca to a plate, slices it with a standard knife and fork, then serves. It is both endearing and awkward.

More pleasing are the baked clams stuffed with sausage and herbs, or the very fresh little neck clams drizzled with salsa verde.

For entrees, fish is the specialty here, so it's not a rarity to get a whole branzino or Dover sole. But there's a good chance you're here for the paella Valencia served in a metal pot.

"The deeper you dig, the more treasure," a reviewer wrote about the dish in the Post-Gazette in 1991.

While it's stocked with lobster tail, chicken breast, mussels, clams and peas, this is rice with stuff in it, not a traditional paella, where the type of rice (bomba, arborio or calasparra), the shallow pan and cooking technique are important.

If you want the crunchy, toasty bits known as socarrat, forget about it. It appears the rice is cooked in stock and the fish is cooked separately. It's not nearly as majestic as the dish should be.

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The sides are remarkable in their modesty. Instead of something like fried potatoes with onions, potato chips are served family style. Instead of vegetables with romesco, the very green zucchini and broccoli taste like they're unsalted, boil-in-a-bag.

The wine list is impressively inexpensive, with few bottles more than $60, and an array of Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese varietals. And while there are wines by the glass, I never saw what they were on two visits. Normally this would not bother me, but my glass of vinho verde was plenty sweet yet lacked zing, and a chardonnay tasted like it had been open far too long.

Desserts are a nostalgic presentation of cheesecake and flan, individual portions that had seen better days.

A diner sitting outside went out on a limb because the setting felt European enough. "May I smoke a cigarette?" he asked.

A server checked with the manager, who brought out an ashtray. "As long as no one else comes out here," he said. It was the end of the night.

A smoke and an espresso later, the diner walked through the empty dining room, past chairs on tables that had been occupied an hour before.

Inside the wonderfully cozy bar, a server stood beside the host stand, tails untucked. The host had loosened his tie.

There will always be people who go to Mallorca for good reason -- if not for the food, for the character and hospitality.

But with a bevy of new restaurants courting diners, and a population that's trending younger, the question is, for how long?

Melissa McCart: 412-263-1198 or on Twitter @melissamccart

First Published: July 30, 2015, 4:00 a.m.