IBIZA - EIVISSA (IBIZA TOWN) - COMIDAS BAR SAN JUAN

COMIDAS BAR SAN JUAN

UPDATED APRIL 2025 - The Restaurant is closed at the moment, possibly awaiting new owners, which is a massive shame.

The owners of this unpretentious tapas bar remain impervious to Ibiza's trendiness, refusing to change its wood-panelled décor and traditional Spanish menu. It has always been one of the cheapest places to eat in Eivissa (Ibiza Town).

There is new staff at bar San Juan in June 2024, completely different opening hours, and a moderate price increase. They are now open Monday to Friday from 1:30 to 8:30.

When you order two glasses of wine, you get the whole bottle left on your table, which costs €10, and the beer is on the house.

It is still one of, if not the cheapest, places in downtown Eivissa. Try the Caldereta Cordero (Lamb stew with boiled rice) €16.50

Dorada (gilthead sea bream with chips) €14

Traditional Flaó for dessert (made with fresh sheep or goat cheese, eggs, milk, sugar, and mint).

Certain days have specials, like Fridays, when they offer the special paletilla de cordero (roast lamb shoulder).

Other classic dishes include whole-fried fish, squid, and paella. No reservations are accepted, and be aware that you will be sharing your table with others in the traditional workers' way.

Our friend Jonathon Lipsin was there.

"Lunch in Eivissa, just before boarding the ferry to go back to Formentera, we decided to venture into Comidas Bar San Juan on a side street.

This place harks back to the old days in Ibiza, before the glamour and tourists. This is a family-run place with two small rooms. It's an honest working man's Restaurant where the Ibiza locals eat, and it's the type of eating establishment I usually seek out.

It is the kind of place my socialist house painter grandfather would have felt at home. Whenever I get into a strange town, I beseech the locals, "Show me where the locals eat, please"

At San Juan, you can find honest, traditional island food at prices 30% cheaper than those in tourist establishments. You have to wait for a table, and when one comes up, you are seated with others, usually local fishermen, perhaps.

The meal was rounded off with this homemade caramel flan, which was delicious, for about €2.

They used to open early in the morning at 08:30, but times have changed dramatically, and they are now open only from Monday to Friday from 13:30 to 20:30, and you can't book.

Try to use Spanish (if you have any). They speak English, but it's polite in a place like this.

Two people can eat a starter and a main, along with a bottle of decent wine (about €20; house wine is a lot cheaper but not as good), and a few chupitos for under €50 easily!

A later visit,

It's my last day in Spain, so I decided to have a good lunch. I walked a half hour in a desultory manner, meandering here and there down side streets and back alleys, taking everything in. Then I remembered Bar San Juan, located in the serpentine alleys fronting the Old City of Ibiza.

I deftly ducked down one street and made a quick left, and here it was. It isn't fancy, but it's honest and boasts some of the best food in Ibiza port for a third of the price.

I surveyed the daily specials after choosing to eat in the back alley, out in the open air. Most tourists don't know about this place, and it's here where locals and labourers eat. They mostly sit together, sharing tables.

They had paella for €5. This sounded impossible, but I trust them. I ordered that, their aioli, and a shandy.

The shandy came unapologetically as a can of beer and a can of Fanta lime, which I shared in equal proportions in a glass, and got four glasses out of it. The aioli was excellent, as was the crusty bread.

The paella arrived, and I looked at it suspiciously. Yep, all the usual delicacies were to be found. Octopus, chicken, lamb possibly, lobster, shrimp, red peppers and mussels.

The rice was cooked perfectly, and I tucked into it with little ceremony. It wasn't fancy but it was a quarter of the price, had more seafood than other paellas and this was as close as you get to a working man's paella because after all that is where the dish came from in the rice fields of Valencia when the fisherman would get together after a long mornings work.

I remembered their flan (crème caramel) from last time and decided to splurge. It was good as usual.

The bill for aioli and bread, paella, a can of beer, a bottle of lemon sprite, and flan came to €14.

I was talking to the waiter, and he said, "Elsewhere, you can find more expensive paella, but ours is just the same." I heartily agreed. Another excellent food memory is made. Anywhere else, the bill would have been €35.