My friend, the Argentinian architect Luis Laplace, has been talking up Menorca ever since we first met years ago. “It’s the kind of place where you’ll have the best meal of your life, yet you’ll be sitting in a red plastic chair,” he said. I knew right then that I would love it.
For years, Luis has been visiting Menorca to renovate the 19th-century farmhouse he shares with his partner in life and work, Christophe Comoy, and to create the Hauser & Wirth gallery, which opened in 2021 on Isla del Rey, in a former hospital near the port of Mahon. Its arrival has been a huge deal for Menorca, putting it on the international art map.
Right after the gallery’s opening, we stayed with Luis and Christophe at their farmhouse in Alaior, in the center of the island. We were blown away by both properties, and the honesty of the design and a clear appreciation for timeless, simple things. The gallery’s restaurant, Cantina, feels straight out of a Spanish fishing village. The garden, by Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf—known for his use of native plants—looks like it’s been here forever.
I was only on the island for a long weekend, so there is much more I need to see and experience, but I got an amazing list of addresses that Luis and the Hauser & Wirth team put together, and here is my edit of that.
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