We have to start this article by warning you. If you decide to visit restaurant Es Fanals in Mallorca, there is a huge chance you will fall in love for ever with the breathtaking views from the terrace of the restaurant and from every spot in Jumeirah Mallorca, the luxury hotel in which the restaurant is situated. The hotel is located on a cliff and the views over the Mediterranean Sea and the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Tramuntana mountain range, are truly unforgettable. Restaurant Es Fanals can be found in El Sóller, a picturesque town located on the northwest coast of Mallorca, one of Spain’s Balearic Islands, which is known for its stunning landscapes, charming streets, and rich cultural heritage. We have to warn you even more. You will also fall in love with the delectable food that Spanish Chef Javier Lopez is cooking in his open kitchen with the very best products from the island.

Concept & location

Restaurant Es Fanals is situated next to the infinity swimming pool of the Jumeirah Mallorca hotel. The Jumeirah hotel group from Dubai, is known for its stunning, luxury properties with unmatched service. The architecture of the hotel in Mallorca is less overwhelming than other hotels from the group such as Burj Al Arab, but in any of the public areas you feel the understated luxury of the property and the kindness and perfect service of the staff. The restaurant itself is located at the highest spot of the hotel, and as such enables breathtaking views over the sea and the surrounding nature.

The building in which you can find Es Fanals, consists of two floors, with the open kitchen and the main dining room being on the second floor. The name of the restaurant was inspired by the traditional lamps that fishermen used to attract fish. It is not surprising that these lamps then also play an important role in the interior design of the restaurant.

Initially, Es Fanals was a tapas restaurant, but the concept of the restaurant was changed completely when Chef Javier Lopez arrived. Together with his German head chef, Lopez created a cuisine which draws inspiration from the wonderful products that can be found on the island of Mallorca. The menu enables guests to discover the rich, authentic flavors of the Balearic Islands in dishes which are based on tradition, but which are executed and plated in a contemporary way.

The Chef & the team

Javier Lopez, the mastermind behind the food that comes out of the kitchen in Es Fanals, originates from Barcelona. The chef grew up in a family that had a poultry and game shop in a local market. As it often goes, as a kid he helped out the family and at a very young age he was exposed to the great products that could be found at the market. It was the perfect way for him to learn to identify good products. He gained more and more knowledge and that initiated his passion for gastronomy. At the age of seventeen, he went to culinary school, where he would spend five years. After culinary school, the chef would go for an internship to Strasbourg, before heading to Belgium where he became chef de partie in the kitchen of Yves Mattagne’s Sea Grill in Brussels and later also in the restaurant of the Hilton hotel in Antwerp, with Chef Gert Jan Raven. After going back to Barcelona to work in a Michelin starred restaurant and learning a lot about Catalan cuisine, Lopez opted for a different career path. He traveled the world for a company selling wines, introducing the brand while cooking for the people who joined the events organized by that brand. But Lopez had the ambition to become executive chef in a luxury hotel and wanted to go back to fine dining. He would get an opportunity to do that with Kempinski and Belmond, before eventually taking up the role in Jumeirah Mallorca and becoming the chef of Es Fanals.

Lopez has a team of five people in the kitchen. The head chef is German and also the rest of the team joined Es Fanals from different countries around the globe.

Gastronomy / Cooking Style

The chef describes his own cooking style in Es Fanals as traditional, because it is based on the usage of local products that traditionally belong to Mallorca and which are sourced there. Inspiration is drawn from old and traditional recipes, but the dishes are brought to modernity by using contemporary cooking techniques.

Lopez and his team do not shy away from using foams or from cooking sous-vide. In everything dish they present, you can tell it is their goal to present Mallorca in a different way than how it is being presented in many other local restaurants. The island is known for the sheer amounts of tourists that visit every summer. To cater for all these tourists, most of the restaurants that you find on the island, serve the same kind of dishes. There are a lot of fish restaurants, a lot of tapas bars,… Es Fanals clearly wants to offer something totally different and much more refined to the guests of Jumeirah. Even though the restaurant is situated next to the ocean, there is a significant offering of meat dishes in Es Fanals. That is mainly because Jumeirah Mallorca has another restaurant, which is focused for ninety percent on fish and to diversify the offering it was decided to make meat an important element of the menus served in Es Fanals.

The chef sources at least eighty percent of the products locally in Mallorca. He is in direct contact with the farmers and buys their products through local suppliers. The restaurant is closed during low season, and that is the time the chef uses to create new dishes. His inspiration he gets mainly from the products.

Some of the dishes we tried :

Service & Wine

The service team takes care of about 35 guests per seating. Service is rather casual, but with a nice gastronomic touch. You feel throughout the experience that the aim of the service team is to make the guests feel comfortable and making sure they are having a great experience. Service is spot on and flawless. Dishes are introduced professionally and during our several visits to the restaurant, we could not catch the team on many mistakes. Everything goes smooth and fluent.

The wine menu consists of about fifty to sixty labels. Even though there is a nice offering of French and Italian wines, you feel that they do a serious effort to give attention to local wines. Mallorca has nice local wines and many of them are produced less than twenty kilometers away from Es Fanals.

Why go? 

There is no doubt that Mallorca is a wonderful vacation destination. Many tourists discover that summer after summer. However, once you reach the unique property of Jumeirah Mallorca, there is no hustle and bustle. There is serenity and quiet luxury. And especially, there are mind-blowing and mesmerizing views, which you will remember for a lifetime. And then there is the food of Javier Lopez. Enjoying the best products that can be found on the island, cooked into mouthwatering, contemporary dishes honoring the authentic, strong flavors of Mallorca, and this while soaking up the stunning surroundings, that is in our opinion why you should go. And we warned you…you will fall in love with the experience.