What to do in Mallorca: Spain's evergreen holiday island (2024)

More than most places, Mallorca means different things to different people. For many the Spanish island is synonymous with the endless trinity of sun, sea and sangría, since it virtually invented European beach tourism in the early 20th century. In 1929 Gertrude Stein famously wrote to her war-traumatised friend, the novelist Robert Graves, recommending Mallorca as the perfect place for him to down-shift and de-stress. (‘It’s a paradise,’ she suggested, adding the biting qualifier, ‘if you can stand it.’) For while its popularity soared, the Mallorquín culture was becoming ever more marginal. Traditional farming, skills and cooking almost withered on the vine. (The vines themselves also withered, as ancient grape varieties including Manto Negro and Callet were sidelined to make way for Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.)

When I first came here in the 1980s, it was as a footloose student with a Lonely Planet guide and a fistful of travellers’ cheques. If in those days the island suffered from a serious case of low self-esteem, by the turn of the century it was starting to feel better about itself. The old city of Palma, once almost a no-go zone, had begun its rapid transformation into on of the Mediterranean's most desirable destinations. In 2011, the Tramuntana mountains were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, suggesting a new impulse towards conservation and restoration at the expense of untrammelled development. Now, fuelled by nostalgia for the quiet, easygoing past and the current yearning for slow and sustainable travel, the latest phase of the fightback is firmly underway.

Revolutions aren’t always full of sound and fury and shouted slogans. Sometimes they’re about a diverse group of people all quietly heading in the same direction. The movement on Mallorca is taking place simultaneously on several fronts. On the one hand are the incomers: the designers inspired by a long-established craft ethos, the artists and creatives relocating here as a back-to-the- land lifestyle choice, and the high-end hoteliers getting real with zero-waste and organic. On the other are the home-grown artisans finding a fresh interest in their work – as well as the cooks, farmers and winemakers rediscovering a rural gastronomy sidelined for decades by mass tourism and supercharged consumerism. To name but three: chef Maria Solivellas, tireless standard-bearer for local ingredients at her restaurant Ca Na Toneta; Pep Rodríguez, maverick maker of natural wines with rare indigenous grape varieties; and Juana Maria Verger, who is adding value to the glossy-leaved carob crop (for years its chocolate-brown pods were fed to livestock or simply left to rot on the ground) with her range of gluten-free flours, syrups and infusions.

This year I pitched up on the island at the tail end of a long, strange summer that those who live here will never forget. Mostly for the near-total collapse of the travel sector, overwhelmingly Mallorca’s largest source of income, but also for the near-empty beaches, the less-polluted sea and sky, and the locals’ delighted rediscovery of their home as something resembling its pre-touristic incarnation. Most of the hotels had either closed for the winter, exhausted by the pandemic’s rules and regulations, or sadly hadn’t bothered to open at all.

Casa Balandra could hardly be described as a hotel. It’s a rambling, beautiful house in the little-visited inland village of Pórtol (known for its pottery workshops) where Claudia and Isabella del Olmo spent their childhood. The sisters and their associate Cécile Denis, who met Claudia on a design course at Goldsmiths university in London, opened the property in August 2020 – emphatically not as a conventional place to stay, rather as a homely haven where creative spirits could come together for informal retreats. When I arrived, it was still in the afterglow of an Indulgence Weekend of banquets, brunches and picnics in olive groves. Chef Naiara Sabandar had cooked up a storm with fruit and vegetables in their seasonal prime: fennel, almonds, persimmons, olives. Claudia, also a gifted cook, shops Palma’s Pere Garau market for island-grown produce and stocks up on coconut flour at next-wave grocers NU Market. The bright-white interiors, filled largely with vintage furniture from nearby markets, were lit up with laughter and big church candles. My hosts at Balandra were two fine examples of Mallorca’s energetic new crowd. Their circle also includes Barcelona-born travel photographer Pia Riverola, Spanish beauty-brand founder Nuria Val and Lena Catterick and Carlo Letica of ethical clothing line Yoli & Otis, who swapped Australia’s Byron Bay for a house outside Sóller.

Heading into the foothills of the Serra de Tramuntana, I stopped for a café con leche with two other imports: Swedish designers Christoffer and Josephine du Rietz. The main square of pretty Alaró was bathed in a pinkish, autumnal light. A gang of children played by the church wall, watched out of the corner of eyes by parents at café tables. It was a search for improved quality of life that impelled the Du Rietzes to sell up in Stockholm and move to a place they already loved for its expansive natural beauty, interesting mixture of seclusion and connectedness, and the slow-paced rhythms of daily life.

The couple’s main business is buying and doing up old Mallorcan townhouses, with great attention to detail and reverence for history. They work with neighbourhood carpenters and blacksmiths to recreate doors, furniture, even curtain rails, prioritising materials such as sustainably grown woods and conservation-approved colour palettes. ‘Every house has its soul, and we try not to destroy anything about it,’ said Christoffer. ‘What drives us is our respect for the island’s architecture and culture.’

Traditional crafts such as basketry, weaving and woodwork are also reappearing from the shadows. Keen to delve into the world of artesanía, I followed a lane out of Binissalem towards a huge possessió (country estate) with a great stone house at its heart. Finca Bellveure is the home of Con Alma (it means ‘with soul’), a design workshop formed by Alvaro Garriga, from Barcelona, and his partner Maria Antònia Marqués, a sixth-generation member of the farming family who own the property. The pair were working in London when they hatched a plan in a Hampstead café: they would return to Mallorca and reinvent themselves as makers of simple functional objects, using olive and almond wood from the land.

I found Garriga in his dusty-blue work coat crouching over a workbench in a high-beamed room – by a nice coincidence, the estate’s former carpentry shop. Con Alma makes fabulous rustic furniture to order (a recent commission came from Durietz Design), but their biggest seller so far is the olive-wood chopping board incorporating a ceramic tile, handmade and painted by an elderly potter they discovered in Santa Maria. ‘She’s the last of her kind, the technique is almost forgotten. It’s a familiar story. But we’re passionate about supporting Mallorca’s traditional artesanos,’ said Alvaro.

Using such crafts but taking them as far as they can go in the direction of high art is Jaume Roig. A brilliant ceramicist, he lives a quiet life with his partner, carpet designer Adriana Meunié, in a ranch on the eerie flatlands of Ses Salines. Their house, a hut built of stone and breeze blocks, with concrete floors and basic furnishings, is impressive in its artful plainness. Just beyond the front gate a flock of red sheep, a heritage breed descended from Berber stock, was dozing under a fig tree. Jaume and his brother Joan, also a talented potter, learned the trade at their mother’s workshop in Palma, but the siblings soon went their different creative ways: Joan into the rustic-modern tableware used by restaurants such as Ca Na Toneta; Jaume into contemporary ceramics with rough textures and billowing organic forms. Tall and softly spoken, his diffidence concealing a fierce vein of non-conformism, Jaume has an interesting take on the island’s recent history. When he was growing up, Mallorca felt like it was languishing. At school he was even teased for speaking the local dialect of Catalan. Recently, though, he has noticed a volte-face. ‘There’s a movement against the way things have been managed – tourism, Magaluf and all that. Our old culture has recovered a little. People from outside are bringing in fresh ideas. In the last two or three years, I feel there’s a new love for the place, and that is making all the difference.’

In the rural heart of the island everything is rich and earthy. But the coast is also part of this story. Since the 1960s the prodigious village of Deià has been Mallorca’s axis of music, art and general alternativeness. Meanwhile nearby Sóller remained a buttoned-up and bourgeois little town, busy with the sale of its famous oranges. As rents in Deià have gone through the roof and the vibe has waned, a younger crowd has shifted to Sóller. Two pioneers on the scene are local Barbara Martí and her Dutch husband Martín Lucas, who opened Ecocirer, the island’s first vegan/ vegetarian bolthole, in 2015. Then, in 2019, came Re Organic, a Mallorcan-owned food shop and restaurant whose minimalist interior and superb produce (not to mention the gorgeous secret terrace out back) have made it a hub for Sóller’s clean-eating, slow-living community.

Down at the town’s harbour it is a quiet autumn lunchtime, the sheltered bay’s clear-blue waters warmed by three months of relentless summer sun. At the end of Playa d’en Repic is a chiringuito with a difference. In a departure from ubiquitous paella and calamari, Patiki Beach’s English chef, Grace Berrow, cooks deliciously fresh food with ingredients supplied by neighbouring growers. A fisherman brings in his oranges and lemons. She nips down to Palma to buy sourdough at Thomas’ Bakeshop and visits Sóller’s agricultural cooperative to see what’s in season. ‘I feel like we’re in Eden here in this valley. I want people to bring in boxes of whatever they have – I’m 100 per cent interested in buying from the smallest producers possible.’

Berrow brought me out plates of labneh with caramelised shallots, squid with herb aioli, whole grilled fish with slow-braised courgettes, and told me her story, which involves a freewheeling artistic upbringing in Palma and Deià (her father and uncle were Duran Duran’s managers), a stage at Skye Gyngell’s Spring in London and a spell as private cook for actor Emilia Clarke.

Though she returned to the island with ‘no plan’, she quickly developed one. ‘I wanted a beach club, somewhere people could come and eat and drink grapefruit Margaritas and sit for hours.’ When she found this little spot it was a down-at-heel Argentinian grill. ‘We threw out the deep-fat fryer, painted everything white and waited.’

As she spoke I got the impression of a scene that is gradually evolving as a raft of musicians, artists, designers and foodies find their way to Mallorca. There’s an influx from Barcelona and from overpriced Ibiza. Photographer Mario Sorrenti has a house down the road. Knitwear designer Zoë Jordan swings by for family lunches. ‘All the restaurant staff are our friends. Vicki, my right-hand lady in the kitchen, is a ceramicist – she’s setting up a studio.’

My gaze turned from the sea to the Tramuntana mountains behind the town, looming up dark green in the late-afternoon light. Winter would soon be coming, but from what I could see the off-season is also pretty enticing. Berrow will be cooking daily plant-based lunches for delivery and learning more about fine Mallorcan wine. There will be feasts on the beach, impromptu art shows in friends’ houses... ‘I’m just bristling with what we’re going to create,’ she said with a grin. ‘When we look back, we’ll remember what a really exciting time this was.’

The ultimate guide to Mallorca

WHERE TO EAT AND DRINK IN MALLORCA

BRUT

Buenos Aires-born chef Edu Martínez Gil’s adventures in Mallorquín gastronomy include foraging for wild chard and carrot, smoking locally reared meat with carob wood, and fermenting kombucha using grapefruit and loquat. The restaurant’s garage-like space in Llubí also houses a craft-beer brewery.

Price: About £110 for two
Website: brutrestaurante.com

CA NA TONETA

Maria Solivellas and her sister Teresa were championing seasonal ingredients and sustainable fishing practices when Mallorca’s new bohemians were still in short trousers. Their delightful restaurant in Caimari makes stylish use of raw materials sourced entirely from the island; natural wines are a speciality.

Price: About £100 for two
Website: canatoneta.com

DINS SANTI TAURA

Palma’s most extravagantly talented chef shows that not even alta cocina is above tradition and respect for the terroir. Hard-to-find authentic dishes such as sopes mallorquines, island-style snails and fish greixonera are at once elegant and earthy, refined and authentic.

Price: About £75 for two
Website: dinssantitaura.com

PATIKI BEACH

Farm-to-table cooking at a wooden-decked, waterfront chiringuito in Port de Sóller.

Price: About £50 for two
Website: patikibeach.com

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