Juan Vicente Boned
First came the calm. Then the stoves were lit. Next came the garden. At Casbah Formentera, nothing happened by chance. Everything was forged with a specific intention: to create a refuge where time would stand still. A place where relaxation and cuisine were part of the same idea of hospitality. This year, Casbah celebrates ten years as a complete experience, combining a hotel and restaurant, which are inseparable, coherent and deeply connected to the island.
The idea arose from the quiet impulse of Juan Vicente Boned, the alma mater of the project. “Our premise has always been the same: to offer quality, quality and more quality. And to never disappoint the customer”, he says. When he bought the hotel in the year 2000, the restaurant was still dormant. For 15 years, Casbah only consisted of accommodation. But Boned knew that, to truly inspire his guests, accommodation alone was not enough.
The real turning point came when he met Martina Cacheiro, a young Galician chef who had just arrived in Formentera. That encounter was a pact of trust. “Martina was the main person we put our faith in and continues to be so today. We wanted to create the finest gourmet restaurant on the island, and we did so by putting our faith in her”, recalls Boned.
Cacheiro did not disappoint. Since her arrival, she has turned the Casbah kitchen into a space based on narrative and emotion, where each dish speaks with its own voice. “When a customer leaves and says, ‘thank you for feeding us’... that’s magic. I don’t need anything else”, she humbly confesses. Her cuisine does not involve gimmicks or surprises but memory. She works with local produce, values simplicity and respects the soul of each ingredient. “I want anyone who comes to be able to come back whenever they want, enjoy new creations and rediscover that dish that awakened a memory”.
Over the past ten years, Casbah’s culinary offerings have been recognised with numerous awards—such as a recommendation from the Repsol Guide, the Best Restaurant award from the Ibiza and Formentera Gastronomic Association in 2021 and the Nit del Turisme 2022 award from the Balearic Government—and have matured to become one of the hotel’s greatest attractions. Its menu evolves with the seasons and adapts to the rhythm of the island, combining technique and emotion, tradition and contemporary sensibility. From fish and seafood from the island to stews that concentrate time and memory, Cacheiro’s food is a reason in itself to travel to Formentera. Everything starts with the ingredients—honest, fresh and local wherever possible—and culminates in dishes that narrate a unique way of understanding gastronomy.
Casbah is also a unique boutique hotel, surrounded by greenery, silence and understated beauty. Each room invites you to relax and unwind. Every corner seems designed to pamper guests. Between the rooms, the garden and the restaurant, everything flows like a choreographed dance of serenity.
As part of this choreography, Rubén Sánchez has been managing the dining room for more than ten years with a unique blend of elegance, naturalness and precision. “The food is fundamental, but what would we do without that service that, from the moment the diner enters, makes their evening special?”, he says. Trained at the Basque Culinary Centre and with experience in fine dining projects such as Albert Adrià’s Enigma restaurant, Sánchez has turned service into an extension of Cacheiro’s story. With more than 250 labels, a wide selection of wines by the glass and a commitment to labels with personality, he has also elevated the wine list to an experience in itself. “Every wine deserves to be tasted, even if it’s just one glass”, he says.
But Casbah does not stop at what is visible. In 2020, the Boned Escanellas family (BOESGRUP Group) launched one of the project’s most unique chapters with the restoration of the 50-hectare family estate Cas Majoral, adjacent to the hotel, where they now grow olive trees, native fig trees, fruit trees, grains and xeixa wheat. “We use the flour from this wheat to make the bread we serve in our restaurant. And we transform all the organic waste into compost, which goes back to our fields. We close the circle”, he proudly explains. Before Balearic regulations required sustainable practices, Casbah was already practicing a genuine and natural circular economy.
Ten years after opening its doors as a hotel and culinary space, Casbah is celebrating much more than its anniversary; it is celebrating its own way of doing things: slowly, consistently and true to its principles. Casbah Formentera has managed to grow without losing its sense of meaning. “We are never satisfied. We always want to improve. And there we are, working every day”, sums up Boned. Casbah’s greatness lies in the details. In how it welcomes people, how it feeds them, how it relaxes and how it breathes. Casbah is a destination in itself. But above all, it is a way of inhabiting the island with meaning.
