Overall
- In a few words: An experiential outing
- Price: £££
- Address: Passeig de Santa Gertrudis n11, Local 3, 07814 Santa Gertrudis de Fruitera, Balearic Islands
Santa Gertrudis has long been at the island’s creative heart, but diners at Overall, in the heart of the village’s whitewashed church square, will get a sense of just how far that envelope has been pushed. Housed in a low-lit, skinny former art gallery and concealed behind a thick red velvet curtain, dimly lit, graffiti-clad Overall is more redolent of Buenos Aires’ fabled ‘puerta cerrada’ supper clubs than an Ibiza dining destination. Touting itself as ‘modern omakase’ and seating just 24 guests per sitting, Overall is part science lab, part speakeasy, where husband and wife team Jorge Álvarez and Mónica Patiño (they’ve been together since childhood) implement their dazzling array of talents in an open, chef’s table style. Both worked in Asia and rely heavily on preserving, fermenting and ancestral smoking techniques, dipping into a vast, handmade ‘flavour library’ of tinctures, powders, vinegars and hydrosols to create dishes such as octopus aged in wagyu fat and cacao or hand-distilled moonshine cocktails with fermented fruit, native shrubs and carved ice.
Boodiou
- In a few words: Arty plates and fun tipples
- Price: ££
- Address: Carrer de la Mare de Déu, 10, 07800 Eivissa, Illes Balears
Tony Comas and Hadrien Rigat hail from France’s coastal Camargue region, where their wild youth in the 19990s was spent riding horses, herding bulls and bussing tables in Rigat’s family restaurants. Rigat, naturally, became a chef, while Comas became a global cocktail consultant in Mali, Uruguay, Doha, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Fast forward two decades and the Gallic duo are once more joined at the hip, founders of the white-hot Boodiou, a sexy, sultry, sceney hangout in Ibiza’s wild Sa Penya district. It’s no secret that the historic fisherman’s quartier has pulled up its boots in recent years – the barrio is home to Boris Buono’s superlative Ibiza Food Studio and Room Service, a louche cocktail bar by Italian photographer Riccardo Vimercati – but Boodiou’s cave-like location – bang in the centre of Calle de la Virgen, Ibiza’s legendary gay district, gives it a spice all its own. Rigat’s classic French background and sexy, exotic outlook mean Michelin-esque flavours using market-fresh ingredients – sweet parsnips, country eggs, razor clams – served informally and tapas-style on oil-slicked sharing plates. Comas, meanwhile, distils his own spirits – from a mezcal-esque prickly pear distillate to a tart apple cider – to create cult cocktails like the vegan hierbas sour. There’s a rare synchronicity between the bar and the kitchen, born out of decades of friendship. In high summer, as drag queens clatter down the cobbles and Boodiou’s candlelit tables spill out beneath the stars, there’s no more vibrant or visceral place to eat on the island.
