Es Racó d’Artà

We arrive late at night. The sky is bruise-purple and black, pierced with thousands of bright white stars and all around there’s the low rumbling of cicadas. Mallorca is home to many sprawling fincas that have been converted into chic country hotels, but Es Racó d’Artà is different: it is a luxurious spa retreat but also a working farm and one of the island’s largest rural estates. The driveway winds up through the fields to a car park where we’re met by the concierge in an electric golf cart and driven up to the main house. 

The original sand-coloured building has been lovingly preserved, while the well-known local architect Toni Esteva has done a brilliant job brightening up the typically dark interiors while preserving its rustic character. Smooth white walls and minimal interiors with blonde-wood furnishings, jute matting and warm golden lighting create an environment that’s stylish but in a simple, homey kind of way. Downstairs there are a number of lounge rooms with double doors that open onto gardens, allowing guests to drift freely in and out throughout the day, while upstairs there are eight bedrooms – ours is a spacious, whitewashed suite. Floaty linen curtains separate the living room and bedroom, and a steep stone staircase leads up to a private rooftop terrace where we sit wrapped in soft, woollen blankets, sipping cool glasses of white wine. 

It’s not until the next morning, when we open the shutters of our windows and gaze out across the gardens, that we’re able to take in the wild beauty of our surroundings. Spanning 540 acres of Mediterranean forest and farmland, Es Racó lies within the protected Parc Natural de la Peninsula Llevant and a short drive from the historic town of Artà, which we can glimpse from our bedroom. 

Mornings at Es Racó typically start with meditation and yoga in a 13th-century chapel, which has been sensitively converted into a shala with an open-air platform. But as we’re only here for the weekend, we skip the early wake-up call and luxuriate for a few extra hours in bed before padding down to breakfast. Beni Axir, the hotel’s restaurant, is set to the side of the main house with the best tables under the cover of the trees and overlooking the gardens. The focus, for all meals, is on local organic Mediterranean produce, much of which is grown on the estate – fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers are picked daily, the olive oil is also home-produced and the honey comes from the resident four-million bees. 

We fall into an easy routine: fresh figs, yogurt and granola for breakfast followed by a swim in the saltwater infinity pool, then lounging in the sun reading. Before lunch each day, we go for a run around the estate, following a narrow, sometimes barely visible track that weaves up through scrubby woodland, back out along the edge of the vineyards and up along the hillside where we sometimes encounter a donkey grazing on the other side of the fence and pass by one of the 21 casitas (cottages) that are hidden throughout the grounds. We take another quick swim to cool off and then head either to the restaurant or the – relatively – nearby municipality of Artà, where we wander the pretty streets in search of somewhere serving tapas and wine. As the light begins to fade, it’s time to hit the spa, housed in a separate pavilion, for a steam and sauna, a dip in the heated pool and – if we’re feeling brave – the ice bath. On the other side of the pavilion, there are treatment rooms for innovative therapies such as the watsu water-therapy massage as well as facials and aromatherapy treatments that use 100 per cent-organic, island-sourced products. For long-stay guests, there’s also the option of a nutritional consultation which determines a bespoke menu for the kitchens to prepare each day. 

But we’re here for our own kind of retreat, which involves a drink on our terrace watching the sun set and then a long, relaxed dinner of home-baked bread with olive oil, grilled fish and vegetables and a choice of Mallorcan desserts. Everything is beautifully and simply cooked – like the hotel itself, it feels authentic and unpretentious. Guests dine with their dogs lying beside the table or their children running barefoot across the lawn. We get the impression many of them have been here for some time or have visited before – for them, Racó is like a second home. You can pick up your glass of wine and meander down into the garden for a nighttime stroll, request your dessert to be served in the room or carry your own plate upstairs if you want. All of this creates an atmosphere of complete ease but also, somehow, togetherness. 

Similarly, while the hotel’s ethos centres around wellness and holistic living, it never feels forced or overdone. You can take part in activities such as pottery, basket weaving, astronomy classes and guided walks; or you can, as we did, simply luxuriate in the natural beauty and serenity of the surroundings. We only spent three days at Racó, but it was enough to leave us feeling restored and inspired – if we could, we’d return every year. It truly is a balm to the chaos of contemporary living.