Champagne, soda and mezcal infused with elderflower. That’s how the night began. With a welcome cocktail that was already a statement of intent. Delicate, deep, unexpected. On 8 May, El Clodenis reopened its doors in Sant Rafel. After seven years of silence, the house with Ibicenco courtyards, built in 1725, has re-emerged as a space that looks to the future without letting go of the past. This year, the house turns 300 and it’s more alive than ever.
“It is registered in the deeds as Can Fariseu”, explains J. Castro, owner of El Clodenis. A name that may refer to the religious current of Judaism during the time of the Second Temple of Jerusalem. “After the forced conversions of the Middle Ages, many Jews integrated into Ibicenco society and changed their surname to ‘Planells’. They were granted this plot of land, where the church was built fifty years later. That’s why this is the only house on the island that sits higher than a church”, he adds.
El Clodenis offers ancestral cuisine adapted to the present
Turned into a restaurant in the late 20th century, El Clodenis was for decades one of Ibiza’s gastronomic landmarks. Now it returns with a completely new proposal, focused on ancestral cuisine with Mexi-Mediterranean roots, pre-Hispanic techniques and ingredients that tell stories. It brings back the spirit of ancient kitchens. J. Castro puts it simply: “for now, the idea is to treat it as a house, not as a restaurant, because it truly is a house”. A house where things happen. “A house of food, like the paladares in Cuba, where you sit down and are served whatever’s cooking”.
The opening night perfectly reflected that philosophy. The initial cocktail led to a parade of bite-sized dishes to share: prawn croquettes with achiote, pularda and cotija cheese flautas, steak tartare and caviar cones, green tacos with castacán pork, prawn ceviche on grilled lime, black clam bao with breaded shrimp and Yucatecan tomatillo ceviche. Everything designed to be enjoyed with your hands and good company. The menu, created alongside a chef from the Pacific, is short but intense. “We’ve built a menu based around ceviches and fish”, explains J. Castro. Dishes like red corn nixtamalised tortilla with wild bluefin tuna and bone marrow, vegetarian aguachile, chamuco ash-roasted potatoes or cocoa-braised ribs cooked for twelve hours form a cuisine that is modern and straightforward, deeply rooted in memory. “All finger food, made to share”.
Homegrown mezcals
That connection with the ancestral extends into the drinks offering. In one corner of the restaurant sits the Mezcaloteque, a unique selection of premium mezcals crafted by small producers from Oaxaca, Guerrero and Guanajuato. The soul of this space is Everardo Tejada, a botanist originally from Guadalajara, an expert in distillation and infusions, who has designed an original cocktail list inspired by the concept of a barmarcia or apotheque. All the mezcals are “from private cultivation only”. For weeks now, he’s been gathering juniper, pine and other local species to create artisanal blends that fuse herbalism with mixology.
El Clodenis also reopens as a creative space. Throughout the season, video art installations will be presented. The venue’s architecture becomes a canvas for projections across the stone walls. Castro insists on this fusion between the old and the new: “I wanted to combine cutting-edge video art projection technology with the traditional architecture of the casa payesa.”
The long-awaited reopening of El Clodenis brought together artists, entrepreneurs, media representatives and many familiar faces from the island for a truly magical evening, in pure El Clodenis style. The return of a legendary restaurant with a gastronomic offering unlike anything else on the island. In short, returning to El Clodenis means stepping into a centuries-old house that reinvents itself without losing sight of its roots.
