Finding True North
Charismatic Chef Eyal Shani’s menus reflect what's in season from the surrounding land and sea. His North concept will emphasize local produce grown on the resort’s nearby farm and contemporary Israeli and Mediterranean cuisine. It will also include his signature creativity to delight his diners, from spring vegetables one night, to fish caught in the bay the next day.
Locality
“From the first moment I arrived on Ibiza, I understood two things. Firstly, locality, and baking bread with water from the bay or selecting fish from the boats in front of me. Secondly, closing the circle on the elements around us so we can be self-sustaining through our own farm. It concentrates the crystal and creates a precise line of beauty because everything belongs together. It is the meaning of real Ibiza.”
What Eyal has done is to go back to Ibiza’s roots and create something out of this raw inspiration and passion, “The north of Ibiza is a land of many treasures, and it takes time to understand it. My food is a translator. The atmosphere and energy are so different from anywhere else in the world, and I want my food to reflect and recreate them. It takes complete commitment, from the fennel that grows wild to the sweetness of the shellfish, and of course the olive oil. I’m not just creating a restaurant for business. I’m creating a restaurant to make people happy.”
Reinvention
From his inaugural seafood-focused Oceanus that opened more than 30 years ago in his hometown of Jerusalem, Shani’s empire has grown to encompass life as a MasterChef TV personality and judge, and a string of pita-powered restaurants in global cities from Miami to Melbourne and London to Las Vegas. He views each restaurant – whether signature, street food, or sit-down – as a new beginning. And he’s not afraid to take a few risks.
“Each new restaurant is a new world. The culture is different, the team is different, the temperature is different, the energy is different. I carry my point of view about food and serving people, but with each place, I have to throw away any previous inventions, knowledge or success. Otherwise, you’re just repeating yourself.”
Purity
When it first burst onto the restaurant scene in New York, Shani’s Naked Tomato caused quite a kerfuffle. He loves a tomato. But in Ibiza, his favorite tomato started as a seed from a wild, heirloom plant. And his co-star behind many of his fresh masterpieces is Kobi, the humble yet genius farmer and permaculturist at Six Senses Ibiza’s farm, who has nurtured this seed to grow something even Shani couldn’t believe was a tomato.
“Kobi is pioneering, and he has the magic touch to understand the soil and the seed. My tomatoes don’t need anything but salt from the rocks and a few drops of olive oil. The acidity is higher than a lemon and the sweetness is higher than a grape, and both are in total balance. So, you don’t need to embellish it or mask anything. Food is like a sentence, with a subject and an object. My culinary sentence contains just one word: the subject. There is no need to assemble it in any other way. That’s the difference between simplicity and purity. Simplicity is an external characteristic, maybe something is missing. Purity is internal truthfulness and clarity.”
Open May to October for dinner, North’s irresistible combination of ingredients sourced in Ibiza mixed with the superb flavors of Israel is a match made in heaven. Eyal’s trademark dishes feature fresh hyper-seasonal vegetarian small plates, just-caught seafood, and prime Spanish meat dishes, all designed to share. Eyal is an expert at highlighting the zest of Israeli cuisine in its simplest, most mouthwatering form and you can join him for a series of Chef’s Tables on June 22, 23 and 24, 2023.
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The Farm
Set among the abundant fields and meadows just north of Santa Gertrudis, this beautiful 12-hectare agricultural estate is where the magic happens. It’s a source of goodness for the chef’s table, groundwater for the resort, peaceful refuge for Six Senses residents and adventure for their little ones.