Santa Ponsa Fontenille Menorca

Style

Agri-culture

Setting

Heavenly hinterland

Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Menorca meet… Torre Vella, stands guard over the Balearic island’s coast and this 18th-century finca, named Santa Ponsa, has Moorish gardens and a superlative spa. Located a rattle apart along country lanes, they’re collectively known as Fontenille Menorca – a new hotel from the French-accented group who gave us Domaine de Fontenille in Provence and Les Bords de Mer in Marseille. The duo behind it are a pedigreed pair: Parisian art provocateur Guillaume Foucher of La Galerie Particulière and Frédéric Biousse of Comptoir des Cotonniers, Sandro and Maje fame.

Facilities

Rooms

22.

Checkout

Noon, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in 4pm.

More Details

Rates typically include a buffet breakfast of fresh juices and local island specialities such as Menorcan cheeses, sobrasada sausage and sweet pastissets cakes.

Also

One of the Santa Ponsa Superior Deluxe rooms is wheelchair-accessible.

Hotel Closed

The hotel closes from 8 November until Easter; Santa Ponsa reopens on 1 April 2020.

Fitness Center

Free Internet Access

Pet Friendly

Pool

On-Site Restaurant

Spa

At the Hotel

Moorish-style fruit and vegetable gardens stitched across the 250-acre estate, a spa with a sauna and hammam, free WiFi. Torre Vella – a short shuttle ride away – has alfresco massage tables, a sprawling farm with animals and clifftop yoga. In rooms: beach bag, Ren bath products, a minibar, free bottled water and a TV.

Our Favourite Rooms

At Santa Ponsa, all rooms are different, but we loved the Superior Deluxe (especially room four), with its arched windows, dark hues and aged mirrors adding to the overall Arabian Nights theme.

Poolside

Santa Ponsa has an unheated outdoor pool that’s open 24 hours a day and a second at the spa, carved into a dramatic 18th-century cistern.

Spa

Santa Ponsa’s impressive spa has three treatment rooms, a hammam, a sauna, Nordic baths and an underground pool in a centuries-old cistern. Alfresco treatments are available in the grounds too, using organic products extracted from the estate. There are also yoga classes on the calendar several times a week.

Packing Tips

A walking guide to the Camí de Cavalls trail. Once on the island, pick up a parasol in towns such as Alaior ready to explore the north coast’s virgin beaches. You’ll need water, sun cream and towels, too, as many have no facilities – but that’s part of the allure.

Also

The owners had the foresight to landscape the grounds three years before opening, employing a 20-strong team of agricultural pros and gardeners to nurture the vines, aromatic plants, olive groves, orange, lemon and pomegranate trees.

Children

All ages welcome. Cots (€20 a night) can be added to rooms on request. Children are also allowed in the restaurants at all times, with high chairs available. There’s no specific menu, but chefs are happy to adapt dishes to their most-discerning customers.

Gallery

Food & Drink

Top Table

Sit in the sunny courtyard where you can watch palm trees nod and admire the owners’ green-fingered finesse.

Dress Code

Dark and decadent.

Hotel Restaurant

Santa Ponsa’s restaurant Nura – a nod to the ancient Phoenician name for Menorca meaning ‘island of fire’ – has a worldly theme with tagines, grills and other dishes, brought here by the waves of cultures who’ve washed up on the island's shores. It’s open for dinner every night except for Mondays. Catalan chef Albert Riera – formerly of Michelin-pipped La Mare aux Oiseaux near Nantes – brings influences from French and Spanish cuisines to the table. Fresh picks from the hotel gardens, farmland and groves are crafted into delicious vegetarian dishes and local flavours abound on the menu: spiced lamb and honey tagine, Mahón mussels with saffron sabayon, and fish cooked in fig leaves with fennel.

Hotel Bar

Santa Ponsa’s ground-floor bar (open noon to 10pm) is an exotic reflection of the finca’s formative theme, feathered with giant birdcages, opulent oil paintings and rattan peacock chairs, lined with glass doors that open out onto views of the house’s Moorish-style gardens. The bar at Torre Vella (open noon-1pm) is more beachy and Balearic in style, with a touch of Ibiza in its whitewashed walls, cappuccino-coloured couches and statement lighting. Order a pomada (gin-based cocktail) and settle in like a local.

Last Orders

At Santa Ponsa, breakfast is served from 7.30 to 11am. Torre Vella has breakfast from 8am-noon; lunch noon-3pm; dinner 3-11pm.

Room Service

Nura’s dishes can be delivered to your door for a €10 surcharge.

Planes

The island’s only airport is 15km away (a 20-minute drive), near the capital Mahón. The hotel can arrange transfers for €50 one way. Ask Smith24 for details.

Automobiles

Hiring a car is the best way to get around the island – which has no motorways and only one main road running through the middle, making it uncomplicated to navigate. Driving from Mahón in the far east to the westernmost city of Ciutadella takes only 45 minutes – so everything is very much in reach.

Worth Getting Out of Bed For

Balearic beauty Menorca is a trove of converted age-old fincas and seasonal, provenance-led gastronomy. Fontenille Menorca is one result of its enticing glow-up. Or should that be... two? At Torre Vella, its cliffside location puts you in reach of the south coast’s Caribbean-like waters: Son Bou and Santo Tomas beaches are two nearby options. Santa Ponsa might be slightly more inland, but its location is all about the tiered Moorish-style gardens, dotted with palms, orange, lemon and pomegranate trees – zigzagged by stone walls and even a pyramid-like ziggurat (temple). And there are 15 beaches within a 15-minute drive of both Torre Vella and Santa Ponsa. Or explore the island on foot; Menorca's network of trails loops around the entire coast.

Earn or Redeem Points with World of Hyatt

This Mr & Mrs Smith hotel participates in the World of Hyatt loyalty program. As a member, you can earn and redeem points and enjoy exclusive benefits for qualifying nights. .