SPAIN The Balearics: True to Nature

THE BALEARICS: TRUE TO NATURE

Mallorca and Menorca, the two largest Balearic Islands, are staking their economic survival on protecting nature and preserving their precious resources and cultural heritage. Though something of a paradigm shift for Mallorca, the most-visited island in the archipelago by some margin, for Menorca it’s more a matter of staying the course.

Text Hélène Huret – Photos Alba Giné

Top: Chef Andreu Segura prepares Arroz Brut, an emblematic dish of Mallorcan gastronomy. Above: Made with a broth of trumpet of death mushrooms and duck bones, Arroz Brut de Son Brull is spiced with cloves, Jamaican pepper, black pepper and nutmeg. SON BRULL HOTEL & SPA, Pollença, Mallorca, Spain

BORDERED BY UMBRELLA PINES, OLEANDERS AND PALM TREES, the road to Pollença in the north of Mallorca winds languidly towards the Serra de Tramuntana, the mountain range that runs along the island’s west side and which is a listed UNESCO World Heritage Site. At the foot of the mountain known as El Puig de Santa Maria stands the imposing Son Brull Hotel & Spa. This massive edifice of golden stone, dotted with dozens of narrow windows, stands out starkly from the surrounding vegetation. Once abandoned for years, the Suau family has restored this former monastery to its former glory.

In the 1960s, tourism began having a swift and profound impact on Spanish society. Mallorcans were abandoning their farming properties and seeking work on the coast. Why till the soil in the blazing sun? The island’s future was unfolding by the sea. Llorenç Suau invested in this nascent industry, working along the Bay of Palma, where all-inclusive hotels were springing up everywhere. He bought his first hotel near Pollença, his second in Alcúdia. But the more tourism spread throughout Mallorca, the more the Suau family bemoaned the island’s loss of authenticity. “We wanted to assert our Mallorcan identity and show guests how rich the local culture is,” says Miquel Suau, one of Llorenç’s three children. While in Switzerland at the Glion hospitality management school, Miquel discovered Relais & Châteaux. The family already embodied the values of the association and, in the 1990s, one of their hotels became the second Relais & Châteaux property in Mallorca. A new idea took root: “Every time we passed Son Brull, we imagined what we could do with it,” says Miquel. In the late 1990s, the stars aligned and Son Brull came up for sale. Llorenç sold the hotel in Alcúdia, bought the monastery, and turned over management of the project to his children. “We didn’t want imitation,” says Miquel. “We restored everything that could be restored, then decided that everything else would be modern.” The hotel opened to guests in 2003, instantly serving as a model for other hoteliers eager to showcase the real, rural Mallorca. What the Suau family established, nearly 20 years ago, turned out to be the perfect manifestation of an emerging form of agrotourism–one that supports sustainable development. It is exactly this that the Balearic government is now officially promoting in the transition to ‘deseasonalized’, year-round tourism. In 2022, Mallorca joined the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories: as the island depends entirely on tourism

FAUSTINO GRAN, Ciutadella de Menorca, Menorca, Spain

for its economic survival, it must protect the nature, resources, culture and people that draw those visitors. Expressing a harmonious coexistence of past and present are Son Brull’s four new villas and its spa. The facilities’ contemporary lines and materials, designed in 2018 by architect Carme Pinós, almost seem to vanish into the landscape, beneath roofs covered in Mediterranean plants. While construction was underway, every effort was made to ensure the new additions would operate sustainably. “We modernized the wastewater treatment system and put it underground, so it can be used to water the grounds and plantations,” says Miquel. The family also felt it important to preserve the property’s original use: in the 18th century, Jesuits built the monastery on what had once been a farm with olive, lemon, orange and fig trees, grapevines, vegetables and livestock. Today, the hotel still produces its own wine and olive oil, both of which can be tasted at the hotel bar, located in the oil mill–an enormous room home to two long wooden beams responsible for operating the heavy stone press.

The Suau family plans to quadruple the size of the vegetable garden and to plant ramallet tomatoes, a native local variety sold in hand-braided ropes in every market on the island. “The more Mallorcan you are, the more authentic you are, the more original you are,” says Miquel. In the kitchen, Andreu Segura respects this maxim. Chef Segura, from Pollença himself, has been at Son Brull for six years and spent much of that time reworking island classics. The tumbet, a sort of Mallorcan ratatouille, is served tapas-style, while Arroz Brut, a popular rustic dish, is dressed up with a black-chanterelle broth, a slice of foie gras and short-grain Bomba rice from a nearby farm on the Sa Pobla flatlands less than 10 miles away. In a reflection of Mallorca’s hunting culture and meatbased cuisine, his signature dish is an earthy interpretation of an island culinary tradition made with lamb: a dish consisting of a brain fritter and tongue with capers. For evening meals, the sommelier suggests wine pairings that represent the diversity of the island’s resurgent winegrowing industry: having been dying in the 1980s, today there are nearly a hundred bodegas, with many replanting native grape varieties such as Callet, Manto Negro and Prensal. The Mallorca-Menorca crossing only takes an hour. So close, yet so different: Menorca is a land of preserved nature, an Eden floating in the Mediterranean, where life is about the simple pleasures of old that are once again highly coveted.

Above: Contemporary art and antique furniture adorn this former convent, which adjoins the cathedral of Ciutadella de Menorca.

MENORCANS ARE VERY INVOLVED IN PROTECTING THEIR NATURAL TREASURES AND HERITAGE. BEACH CLEANUPS ARE PART OF LOCAL CULTURE.

A dish from the NURA restaurant in Santa Ponsa: Cauliflower Vichyssoise, white asparagus, Menorca prawns, cauliflower pickles, crispy turmeric and pollen fritters.

Above: Chef Albert Riera draws inspiration from his vegetable garden to create the recipes for the NURA restaurant, Santa Ponsa’s table. FONTENILLE MENORCA - SANTA PONSA, Alaior, Menorca, Spain

In Menorca, people swim in quiet coves of turquoise waters, share a paella in the countryside, and walk amidst wild rosemary and dwarf palms to reach deserted beaches. They might tour the island on horseback on the recently restored coastal path, the Cami de Cavalls, before basking in the sun and dining beneath beautiful night skies. Life is slow, still a little untamed, and, for the past few years, deliciously chic. Sustainability has been central to the island’s development for decades. In 1993, Menorca was declared a UNESCO Biosphere for its highly varied ecosystems–wild coves, pine forests, cliffs, lagoons, marshes, dunes, islets and caves. Tourism remains confined to a few coves known as calas, such as Cala Fornells and Cala en Blanes. A swim in the translucent waters of Cala Coves offers a chance to admire the hundred Bronze Age funerary caves dug into the cliffs. Back in 1500BC, Menorca was Spain’s most populous region–the talaiots (watchtowers), taulas (T-shaped megaliths) and caves are remarkably well-preserved vestiges of the era. This prehistoric past, the ‘Talayotic Culture of Minorca,’ is proposed for inclusion on the tentative List of World Heritage of the Spanish State–another way to lend the island lasting protection. At one time someone was tempted to transform the island’s wetlands into marinas, but the population opposed it.

“Menorcans are very involved in protecting their natural treasures and heritage,” says Marc Garrido, concierge at Faustino Gran, a hotel and restaurant in historic downtown Ciutadella. “On this island, people clean their streets and take care of their land. Many non-profit organizations hold big beach cleanups–it’s part of the local culture.” Between Ibiza, the queen of nightlife, and Mallorca, a tourism stronghold, Menorca has been somewhat forgotten by visitor hordes, known only to a few–including connoisseurs who chose to tastefully renovate languishing palaces and forgotten fincas. The Faustino Gran is just one such place. The story begins in the maze of narrow streets of Ciutadella, the island’s former capital, which shelter seignorial palaces, cloisters and convents. In 2014, after years of work, the property opened for business, uniting a 16th-century palace and a former convent adjacent to the cathedral. From the terrace overlooking the patio you can literally touch its stained-glass windows and admire a set of Gothic arches. The dining room makes its home in the garden of the palace’s inner courtyard. In the shade of trees and reeds, the air is cool. “Guests come to experience the sweet life of Menorca,” says Marc. The hotel has three boats for cruising lazily from one cove to another, just as

Above: At the Siempreviva restaurant in Torre Vella, the chef offers grilled fish, paellas and seasonal salads prepared with vegetables from the garden.

Your seven-night itinerary in the Balearics

ALBA GINÉ Photographer “I have a deep love for the Balearics, especially Mallorca, which offers a startling contrast between beaches and mountains. In addition to my photographic work, I create ceramics, inspired by local stones, sandy textures, sea waves and serene colors from nature.” FONTENILLE MENORCA - TORRE VELLA, Alaior, Menorca, Spain

islanders do. The Faustino Gran ‘Casa de Pau’ retreat, near a pristine wild cove, blends into the natural surroundings. The petite property with a gleaming white cottage, swimming pool and vegetable garden won’t be expanding; Menorca has a coastal law that prohibits new construction.

In Menorca, the people and the land have forged a close relationship. Agriculture and livestock are integrated in the landscape: indigenous vermella menorquina red cows graze within nearly 7,000 miles/11,265 kilometers of dry-stone walls. It is this authentic, agricultural Menorca that Domaine de Fontenille invites us to discover and protect. Its owners, Guillaume Foucher and Frédéric Biousse, having finished renovating the Fontenille wine estate, a Relais & Châteaux property in France’s Luberon region, bought two fincas, rural properties, and 740 acres/300 hectares in southern Menorca. One is Santa Ponsa, an elegant country house built in the 17th century around a heavenly garden. The other is Torre Vella, an all-white agricultural building of typical Menorcan architecture. In addition to the remodeling, there was planting, planting and more planting. The charm of Santa Ponsa lies in the luxuriance of its grounds, designed to provide shelter from the summer heat–some 20 acres/8 hectares planted with palm trees, fig trees, cypress, bougainvillea, ficus and agapanthus that descend toward a garden of citrus and pomegranate and the vegetable garden located below the property. The extensive replanting, in consultation with the resident agronomist, helps promote biodiversity–it includes 100 acres/40 hectares of farmland, vineyards, olive groves and mastic trees, and rows of everlasting flower, lavender and rosemary. Ultimately, the estate will produce its own wine, olive oil, and essential oils. All crops are in the process of being certified organic, and both properties manage water resources through wastewater treatment and rainwater recovery systems, which makes crop irrigation possible. The food at Fontenille places local ingredients center-stage. At Torre Vella, it is laid-back and focused on freshness–think gazpacho, salads bursting with green beans or tomatoes, and family-style shared dishes. At NURA, Santa Ponsa’s main restaurant, Albert Riera serves dishes in which local ingredients, prawns and lamb are seasoned with a touch of elsewhere, a nod to the different peoples who have historically inhabited Menorca. Such choice examples of local cuisine, rooted in centuries-old traditions, are exactly why Menorca was named a European Region of Gastronomy in 2022.

© CREDIT PHOTO