Alex Thomson Hayes
Can Truy, a spectacular restaurant housed in the stables of a 400-year-old Balearic peasant farm.
Can Truy is all set to be one of the most talked-about new arrivals on the Ibizan food scene. This stunning restaurant is located in a 100,000 m2 estate that is over 300 years old and belongs to the Thomson Hayes family, pioneers in Pityusic Island catering since the 1970s who fell in love with our island and decided to make it their home.
Alex, a third-generation Thomson Hayes in Ibiza, is in charge of shaping their latest adventure and this 22 year old is bursting with energy, vitality, and optimism. With a constant smile he tells us how his grandparents established themselves in Ibiza and how his parents (New Zealander father and British mother) launched a business that ran weddings, banquets, and events many years ago on this very same estate.
His eyes light up when he talks about the aim of Can Truy. “What we want is that the moment you walk through the door, you feel at home, like you’re part of the family,” he says, adding, “[...] with a care for detail and first-class service, fusing cuisines from the past and present at affordable prices so you can come back to visit us week after week.” This declaration of intent reveals the family’s clear commitment to focusing on both holidaymakers and local residents. That’s why they’ve decided to keep the restaurant open all year round and build up their range of social and banqueting events.
The Can Truy property is almost four centuries old and, as Alex explains, “it’s just like it was, with thick, white walls...” The restaurant stands in what were once the old livestock enclosures and is surrounded by fruit trees: cherries, oranges, and apricots. It also has a terrace with an idyllic garden where the green grass stands out against the ochre earth and white walls of the peasant farm buildings. When night falls the restaurant is ready with perfect lighting and candles that heighten the romantic atmosphere at this unique spot on the island.
In terms of the menu, Alex is categorical when he states that “95% of the produce we’ll use will be local.” In fact, he describes how the restaurant will use its own and neighbouring kitchen gardens and he goes on to proudly recount how his grandfather began the kitchen garden project forty years ago. The range of dishes at Can Truy is therefore subject to whatever products are in season meaning that its team has to reinvent the menu regularly to use the freshest produce. Thomson is clear on this: “We want a specific level of quality. If it’s not top quality we won’t serve it, that’s why the menu will keep changing so that we aren’t tied down to offering something that we then can’t provide.”
Alex was born and raised in Ibiza and trained professionally in London. His mixture of backgrounds is expressed in the restaurant where there’s space for peasant-style roasted chicken, Ibizan-grown vegetables and even a hangi! Yes that’s right: at Can Truy you can enjoy a delicious Maori roast made in a genuine hangi pit oven, cooked just as tradition dictates! Just remember, if you’d like to enjoy this culinary marvel you need to book in advance. Hangi is a cooking technique typical to New Zealand and Pacific island aborigines; it involves roasting meat in an underground oven that is heated for two hours with a large fire (the sides and bottom are covered with stone to retain the heat). Meat is then placed in the oven and slow-cooked using the residual heat. The result is meat “that falls apart and has an intense smoky flavour that is truly special.” Alex explains that his father built the oven 35 years ago; it was no easy task because, he says laughing, “the stones here wouldn’t retain the heat and they exploded.”
With regard to the team, Alex emphasis the important of creating a unit, like a family, never forgetting the classic phrase: “you’re as strong as your team.” And that’s how things are here, the workforce consists of locals and foreigners with three things in common: youth, desire, and passion. We’re sure that they’ll sow the seeds for success and, from everyone at FaceFoodMag, we wish them all the best.
