Palma’s cathedral on the sea wall, a turquoise bay to the west, the Tramuntana rising behind. From June to September it is the most complete weekend in the Balearics — old-town dinners, cove mornings, a marina at sunset. Out of season, much of the coast rests.
Nikki Beach · Saturday on the Calvià coast
La Residencia · Deià, the garden walk
Palma first. Can Bordoy Grand House & Garden is a restored grand house in La Llotja with a walled garden and pool, rare inside the old town, and Botànic downstairs. Hotel Sant Francesc occupies a mid-19th-century palace opposite its basilica, with a rooftop pool that faces the cathedral at dusk. Es Princep, on the sea wall in La Calatrava, has a rooftop over the bay and Zaranda inside — the practical choice for a larger group.
The coast is the other register. Cap Rocat is a sea fortress on a thirty-hectare reserve south of Palma, its rooms cut into the old battlements, the Sea Club down on the rocks. La Residencia, in Deià, is a pair of 17th-century manor houses in the Tramuntana, a hotel since 1984. For ten or more, a villa in Calvià or the hills behind Palma often makes more sense than a hotel; keep it close enough to the old town that dinner is not a drive.
Old town if the group wants to walk home at three. Coast if the group wants the morning to begin in the water.
Six addresses, in the sequence a Mallorca weekend tends to use them.
Our picks. Use them, or bring your own.
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El Llorenç · The rooftop, the hour before dinner
Hostal Cuba · The Club, after midnight
Palma is not a superclub town, and it is better for it. The night is a sequence of rooms in the old town and Santa Catalina, most of them a short walk from the last.
Gibson on Plaça del Mercat is the meeting point — a Parisian-style bar, open every day since 2005, a Dry Martini on the terrace. Dinner at Marc Fosh, the Michelin-starred room on Carrer de la Missió, or at Zaranda inside Es Princep. Then Hostal Cuba: the Sky Bar on the roof with a DJ until eleven, The Club downstairs from half past ten, Thursday to Saturday. West along the bay, Ritzi Lounge Bar plays house over the Puerto Portals yachts every night, and on full-moon nights Lobster Club keeps its pool going after dark.
Hospes Maricel · Cas Català, the terrace over the water
A Mallorca weekend run end to end — the cove, the daybed, the rooftop, the late room, repeat — needs one morning that asks nothing of anyone.
Hospes Maricel, on the rock at Cas Català just west of Palma, runs its Bodyna Spa under the stone arches of the old palace, open to the sea: a heated pool, a hammam, and in summer treatments on a terrace over the water. It opens at ten. Take the treatments as a group, stay on for breakfast, and the last night takes care of itself.
Expect €1,600 to €3,500 per person for three nights in July or August — Mallorca has a wide spread, and an old-town room, a coastal property and a shared villa sit at very different points on it. Flights to Palma, a room or a villa share, one tasting-menu dinner, a day on the daybeds, a skippered boat split across the group.
Some fixed points. Ca n’Eduardo’s fish runs €34 to €38 a plate. DINS serves one closed menu and charges €120 a head for cancellations inside 48 hours. The Sant Francesc rooftop opens to non-residents from 19:30 in summer; El Llorenç takes rooftop tables for lunch or dinner, not for drinks alone. The season is real and it is short: Lobster Club opened on 14 May this year, and Nikki Beach moves to daytime hours in October. For July and August, reserve the dinner rooms and daybeds a month out, and arrange cars for Deià and the late returns from Portals ahead of time.
Tell us the dates and the group. We’ll have it in 72 hours — from €199, incl. VAT.
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