Jondal
Rafa Zafra has a saying that explains things better than any letter of introduction: “The difference between a very good restaurant and a revolutionary one is that the latter changes the way you eat”. Rafa says this in the way he has of pronouncing important words, and you immediately understand that Jondal is not merely one of the finest restaurants in the world, but something qualitatively different from almost anything else around — because it is not a question of the ingredients, but because each season, Rafa Zafra and Ricardo Acquista put themselves in the position of a guest who sits down at their table.
This ability to stand in the shoes of the customer is not a protocol, nor even a company mission statement framed and hung on an office wall. It is the specific question that Rafa and Ricards ask themselves before taking any decision that affects the dining experience. It covers everything from how the table is set to the order of arrival of the dishes. From the pace of the service to the way in which a member of the team comes and explains an item newly arrived from the fish auction. Everything is fed through that filter. And that filter has a name: genuine empathy. Which Jondal actually practises, instead of merely using it as an embellishment for speeches. It springs from the desire that customers will step out of the restaurant having experienced something they were not expecting. A way of understanding the concept of hospitality based on the idea that every customer leaves with the feeling of having experienced something they are unlikely to forget.
But if Jondal changes the way you eat, it does so because it has a team that has internalised this mission and executes it with a naturalness that cannot be bought or produced in a single season. It is built up over years of being there, of listening, and of that quiet thoughtfulness that Jessica Maireles and Pol Perelló practise in the dining room. Two presences that regular customers recognise and are thankful for, without necessarily being able to explain why. That feeling of being in the hands of someone who has sussed you out before you open your mouth, and who makes every visit feel like a return visit.
“The difference between a very good restaurant and a revolutionary one is that the latter changes the way you eat” — Rafa Zafra
Goran Krstanovic, the sommelier, completes this holy trinity with an expertise in wine that complements the food, but never imposes. He creates food and wine pairings with the same philosophy that underlies the restaurant dishes: respect for the product, sincerity, and no overkill to distract from what is important. Nothing but great products from small bodegas. Everything is out of the ordinary, studied and selected with the judgement of someone who travels, visits and samples bodega after bodega out of season.
And in the kitchen, Alberto Castiñeira and Youssou Diarga are the faithful squires who keep alight the flame that Rafa and Ricardo lit, with patience and conviction season after season. With the kind of work you don’t see in the photos but which affects absolutely everything: the consistent quality of the food on the plate, and the faultless cooking that appears simple, but that in fact demands a degree of precision and discipline that only those who work at this level of commitment truly know. And also the ability to maintain this level of excellence when Jondal is full, when there is no respite at the pass and when the margin for error is precisely zero.
There are restaurants which, over time, become predictable. And there are restaurants which, over time, become increasingly necessary. Jondal clearly belongs to the latter category. Rafa Zafra has built something here that transcends the product — and even the exceptional setting of southern Ibiza. Something that turns out exactly as Rafa promised when you experience it sitting at one of his tables: it changes your way of eating and, along with it, the way you expect to be treated.
