Inside San Antonio: What’s Fuelling Ibiza’s Luxury Glow Up?

Take it from us here at C&TH: you can tell a great deal about a hotel by its breakfast. In fact, if you know what to look for, sizing up the morning service is one of the surest ways to separate the merely very good from the genuinely exceptional. By that measure, the breakfast at OKU Ibiza marks this five-star stay out as an absolute thoroughbred.

The whole affair unfolds with near-balletic grace as smiling staff glide between tables beneath a shaded outdoor canopy, appearing just as you’re ready for another flat white or eggs however you like them. There are superfood bowls piled high with avocado, walnuts and chia seeds; glossy pastries and slabs of artisan sourdough; slivers of jamón ibérico waiting patiently to be placed atop pan con tomate – always my breakfast of choice on the island. The fruit, so often an afterthought even in very good hotels, is exceptional: miniature figs at peak ripeness, fat blackberries and blueberries, slices of sweet Ibiza watermelon. If the mood strikes, there’s also excellent fizz on ice.

It’s a scene that captures OKU’s particular brand of laid-back luxury, and just one of the reasons the hotel has established itself among the island’s most coveted addresses since opening in 2021 – no mean feat in a destination hardly short of glamorous options. Perched on a low hill a short stroll from the coast, the design-led aesthetic – think Japanese modernism meets barefoot boho chic – draws a well-heeled international crowd who spend their days lounging in Missoni-branded cabanas to low-key Balearic beats spun by the resident DJ, before heading out for the night.

Which brings us to OKU’s location: San Antonio. Double take? Readers of a certain vintage will remember the town’s reputation in the 90s and 00s, when this once-sleepy fishing village on Ibiza’s west coast became a full-throttle playground for British teenagers and twenty-somethings chasing cheap drinks and late nights on the infamous West End bar strip. Back then, it was hardly the place you’d expect to find one of the island’s best hotels. Even when OKU first opened, eyebrows were raised. Would Ibiza’s most discerning visitors really come to this part of the island?

Fast forward to today and the question has been definitively answered. San Antonio – and the countryside that surrounds it – is in the midst of a striking glow-up, with a wave of sophisticated stays, restaurants and beach clubs drawing the sort of crowd that might once have given the area a very wide berth indeed.

‘Until quite recently, our type of client simply wouldn’t have gone to San Antonio,’ confirms Serena Cook, founder and CEO of Deliciously Sorted, the luxury concierge service that has spent the past 25 years orchestrating high-end Ibiza itineraries for ultra-wealthy visitors. ‘I remember visiting myself for the first time in the late 90s and it was very Brits abroad – fried English breakfasts, lads on the lash. It wasn’t very nice at all.’

The change has been dramatic, says Cook, who points to the pandemic years as the moment the shift became truly noticeable, with a string of new openings prompting her to reassess the area. ‘Now, when we’re planning itineraries for our clients,’ she says. ‘San Antonio is part of the conversation in a way that it simply wasn’t before.’

Indeed, it’s no exaggeration to say that some of the island’s most exciting restaurant openings can now be found in and around the town. OKU’s own fine-diner, relaunched last summer as Teyo, delivers some of the freshest sushi on the island, while just down the hill at Cala Gració, the nearest beach, you’ll find the newly opened Pomelo Playa, which epitomises the changing face of the area with its hanging fisherman’s lamps, smart green umbrellas and rubber plants. The easy bohemian feel is matched by a stylish crowd and an elevated Ibizan menu, including a memorable roasted lobster with orzo.

Elsewhere in town, Sa Capella stakes a serious claim for one of the island’s sexiest dinner reservations. Housed in an 18th-century chapel, this spot was a fixture of Ibiza’s dining scene in the 70s, counting Freddie Mercury among its regulars, before it slipped off the radar. A seductive revamp by Grupo Mambo in 2023 brought it firmly back, starring candlelit gothic interiors and a dramatic open kitchen with a wood-fired grill, which turns out a slick Mediterranean menu.

Then there’s Madunia, a vast clifftop restaurant which opened on the rugged headland of Cap Negret in 2024. It has quickly become a genuine destination draw thanks to its Tulum-inspired biophilic looks – the sort of place you end up lingering late, seduced by the sweeping sea views. For a visitor to the island who is, shall we say, a little more well-seasoned than some, the prospect of a restaurant where you can happily spend the entire evening is particularly appealing. Next year, diners will be able to walk back to their rooms when the impressive new five-star hotel currently being built by Madunia’s owners opens its doors. It’s a development that will no doubt cement this corner of the island’s newfound cachet even further.

So what’s behind all this change? At least some of the credit belongs to the local council, which has invested around €20 million in an ambitious effort to clean up and revitalise San Antonio’s town centre. Shopfronts have been smartened, entire streets pedestrianised and Spanish street artist Okuda San Miguel was commissioned last summer to transform one of the resort’s busiest avenues into a colourful public art installation. 

The West End still draws its younger visitors and although it’s noticeably more polished than it once was, it’s not necessarily somewhere we’d recommend. However, it’s just a short walk northwards to the recently extended seafront promenade, also known as the Sunset Strip, which is one of my favourite spots on the bay. Following development works over the past decade, it now stretches further along the coastline towards Cala Gració, and its widened pavements and sleek apartment blocks lend the whole stretch something of a Miami boardwalk feel. Early evening is the best time to see it, gelato in hand (we’d recommend Gelateria Milú). Locals walk their dogs after the heat of the day has passed, Lycra-clad runners cruise by, and the walkway buzzes with a smart crowd getting ready for the night ahead.

The transformation isn’t limited to the northern edge of town, either. Down around the bay, a cohort of new boutique hotels is reshaping perceptions with Bonito Ibiza, a five-star property that opened last summer, leading the pack. ‘The feedback has been really good, really quickly,’ says José Luis, Bonito’s guest manager, as he gives me an evening tour of the property. ‘We’ve even had guests who were staying at Six Senses come to try a night here, which was completely unexpected.’

Certainly, it looks the part: hanging wicker lamps and natural stone walls in the lobby lead out to a wooden pool deck, white daybeds neatly arranged around it. The bedrooms lean heavily into natural woods and earthy tones – and are impressively spacious by Ibiza standard. There is, however, one fairly sizeable elephant in the room: the property sits directly opposite the infamous O Beach, the influencer-heavy pool club owned by Wayne Lineker, which also happens to have a stake in Bonito. As you enter the hotel’s lobby, you can hear the faint boom-boom-boom of music drifting from across the road. It is a strange juxtaposition, but if the poolside crowd of Ab Fab types in kaftans is taking issue with this, they’re not showing it. And once inside the grounds, you feel surprisingly removed from the madness outside.

That sense of escape is even stronger at the hotel’s hip rooftop restaurant, Cielito, which serves a sophisticated take on modern Mexican cuisine (think ceviche, tiradito and plenty of mezcal). If there’s a better sunset dinner view in San Antonio – or indeed on the island – I’d be surprised.

Which brings us to perhaps the biggest reason why San Antonio has landed on the map for the luxury travel crowd: its location. San Antonio has always been geographically blessed. The town sits within a broad natural bay that offers a front-row seat to Ibiza’s famously spectacular sunsets, while the surrounding coastline is scattered with beautiful sandy coves (calas). 

But even on an island with no shortage of cracking seafront views, San Antonio offers something quite special, according to Javier Anadón, the founder of Grupo Mambo: ‘For me, the bay was always the key. That view over the water, the sunset every evening – which I truly believe is one of the most beautiful sunsets in the world – it really pulls people in.’

Anadón opened Café Mambo there in 1994 to take advantage of the setting, and the bar swiftly became an island institution as party-goers flocked there each evening to sit on the steps outside and watch the sun drop beneath the horizon to a DJ-driven accompaniment. Today, Café Mambo is still going strong, but the group’s portfolio now spans eight restaurants and four hotels – most of them at the finer end of things, and many still centred around this bay. It makes Anadón arguably the island’s foremost authority on all things San An.

‘When I arrived in the 70s, San Antonio already had an amazing energy,’ Anadón tells me. ‘It wasn’t polished or luxurious like some parts of the island today. It was simple, more bohemian – artists, travellers, musicians, people who had come to Ibiza searching for something different.  Today, the expectations of visitors are much higher. They want great food and good, family-style service, not just the views. So naturally we have had to evolve, as well. But the most important thing is not to lose the soul of the place.’

Nowhere captures that balance quite as well as Cala Gracioneta, Anadón’s beach club on the small cove just beyond Cala Gració. Cala Gracioneta began life as a humble chiringuito, he tells me, with ‘simple tables, simple cooking, salads and fresh fish from the island’. 

And today that essential spirit endures – even if the proposition has evolved considerably. The wooden tables are still notably unfancy (though obviously very high-spec) and the menu still includes fish cooked on a grill and terrific salads. That said, I doubt the wine and champagne selection was so extensive back in the day.

There remains beauty to the simplicity, and it’s the setting that’s the real luxury here: a tiny crescent of pale sand framed by pine trees, water lapping as you eat. Indeed, in the humble opinion of this writer, it is one of the finest spots on the island to spend a long, rose-fulled afternoon  – and proof this part of Ibiza is worthy of attention.

‘I’m very optimistic,’ says Anadón, when I ask him about the road ahead. ‘San Antonio is going through a new chapter, but of course music and hospitality will always be part of the story. What I hope is that we continue to find the right balance. Ibiza is a very special place. If we take care of it, it will continue to inspire people for many generations.’