You may feel this needs to be moved to another section but wanted to post this here - a detailed non review of Heart - No red love Heart here.
I feel a need to write about my non experience of Heart. The idea was to write a short and bittersweet review of their reservations system until I thought about it more…
On my coffee table at home sits the massive Bible of gastronomy – A day At El Bulli, a birthday present from Mr bakedbeans. At the time of receiving it around 6 years ago I wasn’t completely familiar with Ferran Adria but I quickly cottoned on and hoped one day we would be able to dine at a place of his. I pick it up on cold rainy nights dreaming of what might have been during a balmy evening on the Costa Brava still not really understanding why the closed it.
A few months ago an invite to a 2016 family wedding in Sitges made us stand up like meerkats wondering if we could combine a trip to Tickets. Then more recently when we learned he was coming to my favourite place in the whole wide world how could I not try to get a table during our fortnight in July 2015?
On our last night of #IBZ2014 we went to Lio. Between random sing & dance alongs of Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ we tried to compare the old layout of El Divino and reminisced about dancing to the full set up of Masters at Work 12 years ago against that beautiful, uninterrupted backdrop. With trying for a reservation at Heart I assumed I would better the gastronomic side of things. Liking to be organised I even had an outfit in mind.
For several weeks before our trip I emailed Heart reservations always receiving an auto response not really understanding what it meant. I did this a good few times more, via the website and reservation link, receiving the auto response each time not convinced if I was on a waiting list or not. I then realised purely by stalking this forum as have done for all past Ibiza holidays (no need for guidebooks) that Heart wasn’t actually opening until around the end of June so no wonder they hadn’t got round to booking people in. But, reading in posh online press leading up to the holiday and the hundreds of free mags you come across once over there ‘…Heart is already mostly fully booked for the summer’. Hmmmm…
Fast forward to a few nights into our trip while scraping the hotel wifi to upload #warriorposevariation atop Torre Savinar (car/trainers/water essential) I quickly scrolled through my work emails. I felt I’d struck gold when I noticed an email from a couple of days earlier congratulating me on being successful in securing a reservation to Heart for a week on Monday - the date I had been trying for those weeks and months earlier & what would be our last night of the holiday. The very bottom of the email said I had to respond to a link to “provide your credit card details within 24 hours in order to secure the reservation”. With Ibiza brain not quite fully set in I did the maths realising I was too late for the link as I had been silly enough not to read my emails every day while on holiday… Not one to give up on all the effort and the fact Heart was a 5 minute walk from our hotel I decided to detour over one night while hub waited in Calma for the Talamanca-Old Town water taxi (highly recommended – goes from outside Hotel Corso then Calma every 15 mins until 1am) to ask if I could confirm my booking there and then or look at other nights when they might have been able to squeeze in a table of 2 on the Terrace. That’s all I wanted; two, about 9ish, no fuss/VIP/entourage/would adhere to a dress code if required.
So armed with the Bilberry I use for work but can hardly use (no buttons), my Mastercard and fuzzy brain-freeze ‘just sunk a mango daiquiri’ feeling as the sun was falling over the hills towards San An I arrived to the sliding glass doors of the Ibiza Gran Hotel off Passeig Joan Carles I. Now I like to think I was dressed okay, even just for walking into the building; simple-but-Ibiza-style white dress with long-floaty-hippy-shawl thing coupled with colourful boho bag and flats; all a high street combo ranging from Primark all the way up to New Look.
Once inside the dark space there was nowhere that advertised Heart as I enquired at what turned out to be the casino desk so was ushered over to a flappy seemingly disorganised bunch of miserably beautiful people faffing over ipads, USB’s and cable ties on a black skirted table. I showed the first person who looked up from the faff my bright flashy coloured email and explained. Then after a bit of nothingness a girl looked at me like I was an alien…. I thought everyone dressed like this around here!? My hair was even in sea-salt waves; did she not realise I’ve managed four days without ghd’s even if the Beeb weather app says it’s 85% humidity at night?! She then said the guy who deals with reservations “WILL be here soon”. Cue images flashing before eyes of me still waiting three hours later sweating & daiquiri desperate, but gave them a chance thinking ‘Heart is really new & professional establishment so he MUST show up soon’ guessing he’d likely start shift at 8.30 as it was close to that time. By now I was setting my watch by the Talamanca ferry so decided to give him ten minutes as said ferry was so reliable I could always hop on the 9pm instead.
Initial observations a minute ago found there was nowhere to sit nor was I invited to wait (stand) anywhere so I stood near the sliding doors – the only real feature of the area, feeling like a foreign fish out of water. The other ‘feature’ was an MI6 style burly bloke in black standing to my right next to what turned out to be a door hidden behind a thick black velvet curtain as black-clad young people walked through it a few times- I was so close to this secret door and it was so well hidden each time someone approached I thought it might be the res guy but they carried on through the door-curtain while air kissing people in various European accents.
Then from nowhere someone new actually acknowledged me in decent English, wearing black (see a theme developing?). I didn’t see him arrive or hear anyone explain my problem. Anyways, I thought I was so close….
But no. A bit like a magician he produced a small card in front of my face with an email address for 'special reservations' (in Spanish – I wont tell you what it is as its ‘special’ but you could guess) because miraculously they “don't deal with reservations or emails on the premises” he said, “so there was no way they could help me”….. He even agreed before I began to open my mouth that “this is a bit of a weird thing to understand”. Yep.
Bye bye! Simple as that. And that was my Heart experience: no red for love. Just black.
Heading back towards La Calma I realised I just wasn’t bothered with more emails or waiting around. Knowing the planned outfit may not have been Cavalli (see what I did there – if you’re familiar with the area) or even black, and remembering I got a table at Lio with no problem at all last year and even turned up in a nice bright high street dress, with Nine West sale shoes – the same ones that graced the dancefloor during our last time at El Divino in 2007, I took the attitude that there are many more restaurants in the old town I had on my list that would happily take my hard earned cash. We even made the 8.45pm ferry – result!
To sum-up I doubt it was the outfit that failed to get me in albeit far from black and designer, and the planned outfit wasn’t anywhere close to expensive or designer (or black), but one wonders why on earth Heart appears to be so complicated and ‘exclusive’. Yes Lio was the most expensive place I’ve ever eaten at in Ibiza or the World come to think of it (hey ho who doesn’t have a blow out on the last night of their jollies; we all work for it) but we got a table with no quibble about 3 weeks in advance (even for mid July), we had a good night, enjoyed fresh & generous portions of food and drinks surprisingly for the price all while having no clue about the chef and ending with someone whispering in my husbands ear to keep him company while I went to the amazingly posh selfie-tastic ladies. #beentheredonethat.
With Ferran Adria however this was a gastro-ambition and a chance to hopefully taste something molecularly special I may have seen while flicking through the Bible last November. Fair enough he might not have been anywhere near the fairground carts I think the food is served from on the ”Street Food Party Terrace” but why make it complicated, time-specific and unhelpful?! Is it now that the PA needs a PA to check her emails on holiday and sort it all out like magic? I did do quite a bit of advance reservations for other restaurants/places before this trip and understand a small part of Ibiza has changed and is going this way, but even the res system is off site with no access at all to a booking system?!
I might still try for Tickets in BCN next year. And the outfit I didn’t end up wearing I’ll just keep for the wedding!
I just can’t resist: for Heart at least, there definitely is not Mastercard.
