Where we ate in Ibiza 2023

We had the most wonderful time in Ibiza, pure relaxation and a great time with friends. It was the dream holiday!

There are some amazing restaurants in Ibiza, and we enjoyed some leisurely lunches and evening meals.

And as well as serving delicious food, I love how so many of the restaurants have cute little shops full of things that I want to buy!

We stayed in the North of the island near Sant Joan, but travelled a bit to eat at different restaurants. Here are my favourite places where we ate this year…

If you book one restaurant in Ibiza, make it La Paloma. This restaurant is in the most beautiful setting, in a peaceful garden with a really chilled vibe. La Paloma serves homemade Mediterranean food, and you can really tell it’s made with the best quality ingredients.

Our server said we needed to order the falafel, and it was the best falafel I’ve ever had! I don’t know how they make it so good, and not at all dry. We also ordered a few other plates to start, including hummus, and aubergine with cashew butter. For mains we all went for salads. I ordered the oriental which came with chicken, avo, coriander, leaves, and a spicy chilli dressing.

We stayed for 3 hours, and weren’t rushed at any point of the meal. It’s the perfect way to spend an afternoon sitting under a parasol in their garden to escape the afternoon sun.

After our (very!) early flight to Ibiza, we headed to Sant Joan after dropping our bags off at the villa for an early lunch. This restaurant is open for breakfast / lunch / dinner. The menu is predominantly plant-based, and they also serve locally caught fish, and occasionally some local free-range and organic meat.

We ordered from their brunch menu, and I had the avocado toast which was served on crispy rye bread with some leaves and chilli oil. And we all tried the different juices, I went for the purple one which was beetroot, strawberries and lemon. It was so fresh and delicious!

They also had gluten free bread here which was great for Nick.

I’d be keen to try their evening menu on our next trip to Ibiza, but would certainly recommend going for brunch.

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We ate at Elements on our first night, and I booked an early table so we could finish dinner and then sit on the beach to watch the sunset.

I had a look at the Elements menu on their website before we came, but when we arrived we were also given a sushi menu which isn’t shown online, and I decided to order from that.

There were a lot of sushi options, with nigiri, sashimi, and various rolls. I ordered a few nigiri to start, followed by a poke bowl for main. All the fish tasted so fresh, and I loved the flavour of the poke bowl which was topped with a sriracha mayo.

If you go on a Sunday and get held up with the traffic going down to Benirras for sunset, you can show your booking reservation to be let through the traffic barriers to get down to the beach car park.

This had a similar vibe to La Paloma, and another beautiful garden setting. I loved our meal here, which started off with an alcohol free version of their cocktail of the day made with peach juice and ginger. We had some really nice alcohol free drinks on our trip, it was great to see so many mocktails and exciting alcohol free options on menus.

We ordered a couple of starters to share, the highlight was the labneh with beetroot, mint, garlic, tomatoes, seeds, and naan bread. The colour of this was amazing!

And for mains I had the aubergine carpaccio with a side of sweet potato. The aubergine carpaccio was incredible, topped with feta, tomatoes, pomegranate, dates, and pistachio and rocket pesto. It had so much flavour!

There were plenty of vegetarian and vegan dishes here. I’ve been surprised at how so many restaurants in Ibiza have minimal and quite boring vegan options. (I’m not vegan but two of our friends on holiday with us are).

Aubergine also has a BBQ menu which isn’t shown on their website so there are some meat options too.

This restaurant is located just outside Santa Gertrudis in central Ibiza, and just a short 20 min drive from where we were staying. One thing I love about Ibiza is how quickly you can travel around the whole island, and you can visit so many different places on your holiday without spending a lot of time in the car.

My favourite thing about this restaurant was the sharing plates we ordered to start… Iberian cured ham, manchego, hummus, bread and aioli, olives, and grilled candied artichoke. Shockingly, I think this is the first time I’ve tried artichoke. I loved this with the truffle cream, and it was served with very thin slices of guanciale on top.

I have to admit though, the paella was very disappointing with not a lot of flavour so I’d avoid this.

And make sure you leave room for dessert because the caramelised pineapple carpaccio was so good!

Just a couple of other mentions… we ate at Shamarkanda again this year which is the nearest restaurant to our villa. The food was nice, but they weren’t very helpful in providing suggestions for dairy and gluten free options for Nick. We really enjoyed our meal here last year and they were willing to change a couple of things on the menu for his dietary requirements, but it felt like the opposite on this visit. The kimchi croquettes were excellent though.

And we had a meal out at Dalt Villa one night… We ate at Bonito Tapas Bar which was fine, but there are much better places to eat in Dalt Villa. We hadn’t booked, and of course it was busy. We really wanted to go to a new restaurant called El Olivo Mio, and also tried to get a table at La Oliva. Both of these looked amazing, so if you want to visit make sure to book.