The Sunday Times - UK (2022-05-29)

acoustic set. It was a shockingly glorious

holiday, especially in the eyes of the prim little

square I was back then. But that’s the thing

about Ibiza: it draws you in and then holds on

to you for life.

The island has changed dramatically since

then. Not everyone is happy about it. Too

many rich people, too many package holidays,

say the old-timers. The local police, fed up

with the clubbers and their antics, started

cracking down, imposing curfews, limiting

crowd numbers, and even shutting down

private parties. It will be interesting to see

what happens this summer with Pacha,

Ushuaïa and Amnesia reopening after two

years of being put out to pasture. These huge

clubs have long been a bone of contention.

“The VIP area killed the club scene,” the jour-

nalist Maya Boyd tells me. “All those

cordoned-off areas, with their €2,000-a-pop

vodka bottles and rigidly excluding guest lists.

It’s just not the real Ibiza.”

I hope no one tells them I flew in as a guest

of the swanky new shared private jet service,

Aero (Farnborough to Ibiza from £2,800

return), where the complimentary flight bag

includes Dr Barbara Sturm recovery serums.

But that’s just a part of what makes Ibiza

so endlessly fascinating. What’s clear is

there’s a renewed spirit coursing around its

shores: a change in tempo, a return to some-

thing more intimate and authentic. There’s a

welcoming of “conscious creatives” such as

the model Arizona Muse, now a sustaina-

bility and climate activist, and her husband,

Boniface Verney-Carron, an osteopath and

the founder of the Oona Series wellness plat-

form, who recently moved to the island with

their children.

This bohemian renaissance is very much

being driven by the Brit hospitality supremo

Ben Pundole, for one. He ran London’s Met

Bar when he was just 22, and he’s the man

who Studio 54’s co-founder Ian Schrager

brought in (after a personal recommendation

from Madonna) to add some contemporary

spice to the Edition hotel group. He’s also the

man who New York club queen Amy Sacco, of

Bungalow 8 fame, hired to run her Manhattan

venue Lot 61. The investors of Six Senses

Ibiza (which opened last summer on the

much-in-demand north side of the island,

overlooking the quiet Xarraca Bay) appointed

him creative director of the hotel’s new,

intimate underground village, the aforemen-

tioned Beach Caves. It’s a secret maze of

beautifully designed bars and club spaces, a

restaurant, a recording studio and six suites

under the rocks, where the beds are gigantic

(14ft long) and live music and art installations

will feature regularly.

After sunset cocktails on the terrace of Bar

Segreto on the opening night, we sat down for

dinner — oysters with pink mezcal granita

and chimichurri Rubia Gallega beef served on

plates made by local artisans. I sat next to the

artist Carsten Höller, who told me about his

new Stockholm restaurant, Brutalisten,

where part of his menu is devoted to dishes

of only one ingredient. That feels very Ibiza

now, I commented. He nodded gently. The

TV show Nine Perfect Strangers came to

mind as we decamped to the Xarraca Room,

SUMMER

PART Y

Conscious partying on Ibiza, at the SPECIAL

island’s new venue the Beach Caves

where the DJs Benji B and Cincity played sets.

The next day we headed off for lunch at

Tierra Iris, a nature-based community

offering wellness, conscious eating and

syntropic farming. A rigorously handsome,

man (possibly in his early sixties) sporting a

long white beard appeared at the entrance. A

placid (possibly stoned) donkey stood by his

side. He later undressed to nothing and

performed yoga metres from where we sat, as

the farm team served us vegetables that had

been cooking on coals underground for hours.

A young Johnny Depp lookalike sang under a

tree about clouds and ice cream. He might

have mentioned drugs too. It wasn’t clear if

anyone knew who he was.

Back at the Beach Caves, it was time to get

ready for another Ibicencan all-nighter. I don’t

have time to visit the white ceremonial

amphitheatre at the Sabina Estates and Club-

house, where La Paloma, Ibiza’s favourite

restaurant, now has an outpost. Or the new

hot restaurants El Silencio and Casa Jondal.

Food was never particularly the point on this

island, but the offering is now first-class.

And what about the buffets of old? They’ve

survived. But they are now presented more

discreetly in private houses and include a

newer and more sustainable selection,

curated by “concierges” who wax lyrical about

the wonders of mushrooms and ayahuasca. So

yes, things have changed for the better.

And while you might laugh from afar,

don’t, because the batshit-crazy, beautiful

Ibiza of way back is still alive and well. “It’s so

boring when people talk about the old days,”

says the South African businessman and art

collector David Leppan, who first came to

the island in the 1970s and bought Roman

Polanski’s old house. “The point is anyone

who chooses to come to Ibiza is here

because they already are an interesting

person. It keeps pulling you back. The magic

will always be here.” I wholeheartedly, and

Flights to Ibiza: aero.com. The Beach Caves: [email protected]. Photographs: Christine Kreiselmaier/Trunk Archive, Dylan Don, Darren Gerrish/Getty Images consciously, agree. ■

Ben Pundole, creative director

of the Beach Caves

The Sunday Times Style • 19