A Magpie On The Dunes

Víctor Agudo and Óscar Romero took the bones of Formentera's old Casa Formentera and filled eighteen luxury rooms with red, tiger-print and flea-market finds. The kitchen, lobster fresh off the boat, does the rest.

Hannah is the work of two islanders, Víctor Agudo, co-founder of Ibiza's Casa Jondal, and Óscar Romero, who carried a notion around since 2019: a boutique hotel and a serious kitchen, on the same patch of Formentera sand. They found their site in the bones of the island's iconic Casa Formentera and set about the rest. Hannah hugs the dunes of the Migjorn coast at Es Arenals, white sand on one side, turquoise water on the other, and some of the best sunsets Formentera can muster. It is a low-slung Balearic design hotel of curving, sand-coloured plaster, a Mediterranean bolthole with balconies carved in deep sweeping arcs, and the architecture reads as a continuation of the coastal rock, quietly arguing it has been on this beach far longer than it has.

Cacti cast shadows on smudged plaster walls; inside, organic linens, untreated woods and woven detail soften the intensity of the Balearic sun. The eighteen rooms, each named for a woman, are filled with a magpie's selection of antiques: an oil painting, an ancient vase, a stone bust, a baroque lamp, a tiger-print bench, a hand-painted divider, much of it vintage and chosen piece by piece at Madrid's Rastro flea market, each one earning its place. The visual thread is red, joined by emerald green and gold and balanced against neutral linen and plaster. The whole register is mellow and smooth, with a whimsical nod that keeps the seriousness at bay. Ground-floor rooms open onto terraces shaded by heavy rope draped as a sculptural curtain; upstairs, the junior suites round their edges still further, every surface softened into curve, with sunken bedheads, golden palm lamps and pillowed seating in primary colours.

Agudo made his name in restaurants, and it shows. Grown out of the old Casa Pacha, Hannah's restaurant is seafood first and last, under chef Alberto Pacheco, who trained alongside Rafa Zafra and cut his teeth at Madrid's Estimar. The produce skips the middleman entirely: lobster comes ashore each morning aboard the traditional llaüt La Maja, alongside rock fish and shellfish straight off the island's boats. Look for lobster al ajillo with potatoes and fried eggs, grilled grouper in a whisky sauce, or prawns dressed in a saffron escabeche, honest cooking that lets the catch do the work. "Once upon a time, the sea," runs the house motto, and it more or less covers it.

Between meals there is little to do and every reason not to: yoga and a handful of wellness treatments, a gym if you must, a free transfer from the port, and a sunset that asks for no improvement. So Hannah, you ask? Equal parts hedonist and deep-thinking bohemian.

On Formentera's Migjorn coast, Hannah is a boutique hotel of curving sand-coloured plaster and flea-market antiques, with a seafood restaurant whose lobster lands fresh each morning.

Guest room entrance at Hannah Formentera with a red-framed door, weathered wooden shutters and a green rattan peacock chair | The Aficionados

Curved plaster bedroom at Hannah Formentera with a platform bed and brass palm-tree lamps | The Aficionados

Sand-coloured plaster exterior at Hannah Formentera with a stone staircase and dark clay pots on the Migjorn dunes | The Aficionados

Rooftop terrace at Hannah Formentera with built-in seating in primary-colour stripes under a woven rope canopy | The Aficionados

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