Chilled Ibiza: Experience the Ultimate Sunset Mix

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Booked out well before it opened, this much-talked- about arrival is drawing hordes of wellness-focused travellers to the north of the island. The dark-green hillsides dotted with farmhouses in the typical white- washed, cuboid style; the tiendas selling everything from sandals to sardines; the clouds of chalky dust that billowed up on the bumpy tracks among the pines. Parts of my mental geography were virtually unrecognisable: Santa Gertrudis, in my day a one-horse hamlet with a couple of bars and a tobacconist, was now a fully grown town of done-up villas with a world-class cocktail bar, Overall, and Bottega il Buco, an outpost of New York restaurateur Donna Lennard’s Il Buco, also found in NoHo and the Hamptons. On a hot day it bustles with beautiful people who come for chef Rafa Zafra’s impeccably prepared fish and shellfish. Or a smart seaside hotspot such as Beachouse at the scrappy end of Playa d’en Bossa, where the large Ushuaïa and Hard Rock Hotels fizzle out into overgrown waste ground and car parks.

Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item. The organic produce at HaSalon at The Piazza restaurant – helmed by Eyal Shani, the founding father of new Israeli cuisine – is sourced from the company’s farm outside Santa Gertrudis. Six Senses Ibiza is certainly big and opulent, and involves a massive investment by a powerful international brand, but having visited on the eve of its opening, I’m happy to report that the alarm is mostly unjustified. Lying in bed the next morning with the dazzle of a flaming June day filtering through the shutters, I looked up at the ceiling of my bedroom at Can Domo.There was an atmosphere of elegant unflashiness, chastened chic, that seemed somehow attuned with the mood of the times. Moving from its party-hard peak, Ibiza has gone through an introspective shift, with a desire to slow life down so it can hit its rhythm again.

La Torre is not the only delicious makeover of a tired hostel – look at Los Enamorados in Portinatx, the delightful waterside bolthole curated by design freaks Pierre Traversier and Rozemarijn de Witte. On the rock face above them a series of legends, gobbets of feel-good hippie wisdom, had been written in paint. As such, it’s a perfect illustration of a tendency – one that has come to the fore as the island rakes over its recent past – to see what can be retrieved, reassessed, and if at all possible, recycled. The great dome of Privilege up on the heights of San Rafael looked forlorn and unkempt, the encroaching vegetation making it appear like a Mayan ruin in the early stages of being reclaimed by the jungle.The group has overhauled the house and its grounds, drawing on a deep knowledge of the area’s traditional architecture.

And that was where I headed next, drawn by the single-track roads winding among almond fields and the secret calas (creeks) of the coast. Further round the west coast, I stopped for a dip at the pretty cove of Cala Moli, just down the road from the splashy private community Sabina Estates.I went there for dinner one evening with Serena Cook who, after almost 20 years at the helm of Ibiza’s most creative concierge business, has her finger firmly on the island’s pulse, can always get the best tables and is the keyholder to some of the most special villas around. Rechristened Casa Lhasa, it now specialises in natural and biodynamic wines, though the homespun decoration has been lovingly maintained. The building creeps up the crag, imitating the dun-coloured tones of the surrounding stone; the bamboo shades over the terraces are a visual reference to the boat sheds huddling in the rocky calas along the water’s edge. I committed it to memory as I set off to catch my flight with the salt still drying on my skin: ‘Accept, and let it go. Raising my eyes along the horizon, I saw a sweep of dull identikit rooftops – the coastal suburbs of ‘San An’ – and, through a gap between the buildings, an enticing slice of blue sea.

It was Marañón who introduced me to the community of estate owners who are restoring and regenerating great swathes of abandoned land. As an indication of just how far it is from blaring techno around the pool, there are plans to host a classical music event here next year.I stood on my balcony and took in the sight below: a beauteous pool, bright young things lounging in swimwear, the gentle thud of house music. Of course, this is a high-end hideaway that pulls out all the stops, but we’re a long way from Ushuaïa. As I traversed the island, I found plenty to confound my expectations as well as stir up long-dormant memories. In front of this impromptu shrine, a bearded fellow in the lotus position was doing something with a rolling paper. My stomping ground was always the rural north: the hills and villages around Santa Inés, San Juan and Cala San Vicente.