Bottega il Buco — Restaurant in Santa Eulària des Riu

In 1994 then couple Donna Lennard and Alberto Avalle started serving lunch at their antique shop in Manhattan. Their rustic Italian food quickly led to Il Buco becoming a perennially packed New York City stalwart, where artists, actors and East Villagers still mingle (artist Chuck Closeis a regular). Now the two have reunited to open their first restaurant outside the USA in, of all places, Ibiza. New for summer 2018, Bottega Il Buco is a Roman-style focacceria and wine bar in the curiously smart village of Santa Gertrudis, which, just like the NYC restaurant, is stuffed with vintage furniture and artisan terracotta tableware from Lennard’s home collection.

The tiny open kitchen turns out focaccia, of course, as well as Italian meats and cheeses, homemade pasta and creative crudos (try the red-prawn tartare). There are Spanish influences on the menu too, with dishes such as Ibicencan orange salad with pistachios and chilli. This place has quickly evolved into an insider’s spot, with islanders gathering for morning espressos and in-the-know visitors sipping biodynamic wines under the blue awning in the evening. Once again, Lennard and Avalle’s less is more approach has created a local institution in a...

Unfortunately, the waitstaff had very little patience for foreigners at the end of the evening. Our Portuguese waitress openly mocked our accents, and order to her colleagues . It was weird. Maybe in her mind she thought we couldn’t see her doing this. Or maybe it made her feel better that she could, as I’m sure serving people all day long can be very difficult. Nevertheless, it made us feel bad, and overall ended our evening on a sad note. We noticed she did this to two other tables. To her credit her colleagues seemed to go along with the release of making fun of the patrons. Why work in Ibiza if you can’t stand the patrons, or at...

Terrible organisation! We booked a table for four people for dinner at 8:30pm and the waiter offered us a table inside while everyone else was having dinner on the terrace outside. He told us a table outside was going to be available for us between 9:00 and 9:30 pm. We returned at 9:00 and there was an empty table outside but to our bad surprise they were giving away our table to other guest. The waiter with his hopeless expression on his face could not explain the reason of such a unreasonable mistake and just showed the palms of his hands ! We had to leave without any explanation! Strongly suggest not to count on...