Chilled Ibiza: Experience the Ultimate Sunset Mix

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A 300-year-old casa payesa in the classic ibicenco style, this gorgeous San Lorenzo property had stood abandoned for 80 years before its exemplary six-year restoration job.

Of course, this is a high-end hideaway that pulls out all the stops, but we’re a long way from Ushuaïa. Few places on the planet have undergone changes as sweeping, as transformative, both for good and ill, as Ibiza. 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. Take Oku, which recently opened on the edge of San Antonio, a rebranding of the Casa Cook hotel that had its soft launch in 2019 and then closed. 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.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. Which almost sums it up, except the rebooted San Lorenzo bar also does a great line in small plates such as Iberian pork loin with courgettes.

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. Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH).On the rock face above them a series of legends, gobbets of feel-good hippie wisdom, had been written in paint. Another example of this is Petunia, where I stopped one evening for dinner on a terrace with mesmeric views of the rocky islet Es Vedrà.