It’s just after seven and the sky over Ibiza Town is still stretching itself awake—soft pinks and that faint blue that only lasts a few minutes before the sun commits to the day. I hadn’t planned on getting up so early, but jet lag or instinct nudged me out of bed and onto the cobbled streets. No regrets.
By the time I reached the Mercat Vell—the Old Market—it was already breathing with life.
Not a supermarket, a pulse
This isn’t the kind of place you rush through. It’s not a list-and-cart situation. No fluorescent lights. No identical apples packed in plastic. Instead, there’s this… pulse. A quiet urgency under the surface. Like the food here matters in a way we forget elsewhere.
There’s a woman stacking tomatoes like they’re breakable. She handles them more gently than I’ve ever handled my phone. Deep red, not supermarket red. Juicy in a way you can smell. Next to her: citrus—big, ugly oranges that look like they’ve lived a life. One gets sliced open for a passerby, and she hands me a wedge too, just because. Sharp, sweet, and somehow still cold from the morning air.
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The sea comes in on ice
Further down, a man is shovelling crushed ice under a row of fish. Sardines, bream, cuttlefish, a few enormous prawns with eyes that make you hesitate before eating them. He tells me (in a mix of Spanish and proud hand gestures) that the boats brought them in at dawn. I don’t doubt him. They shine like polished silver, the kind of shine you lose within hours.
He lifts a wriggly little octopus by the head and nods like he’s introducing me to a friend. “Pulpo,” he says. I smile like I understand more than I do.
Wild herbs and stories
Off to the side, under a faded canopy, there’s a small table that smells like the hillside after rain. It’s piled with rosemary, thyme, mint, something leafy and unfamiliar she calls “malva.” The woman behind the table has dirt under her nails and eyes that make you slow down when she speaks.
“These,” she says, handing me a small bunch of thyme, “come from my brother’s finca, near Sant Joan.” I nod, pretending I know where that is. She continues, explaining how the taste changes with the soil, with the heat, with the year. I don’t catch every word, but I get the meaning.
It tastes like someone’s backyard. Like weather. Like memories.
A quiet meal, a full moment
I grab a chunk of still-warm bread from a nearby stall, a small bag of olives, and a slice of soft goat cheese that smells stronger than it tastes. No plate, no napkin. I sit on the edge of a stone fountain and eat it with my hands.
People walk by. Someone plays a guitar in the distance. A group of old men argue about something that doesn’t seem urgent. The cheese melts into the bread. A drop of oil runs down my wrist. I don’t care.
This isn’t brunch. It isn’t planned. It just is.
The market teaches you
I didn’t come here looking for a lesson, but I left with one anyway. In Ibiza, food isn’t a category—it’s a conversation. A relationship. It’s in the way the vendors talk about their goods, the way they look you in the eye, the way they let you taste before you ask.
The market doesn’t try to impress you. That’s what makes it unforgettable.
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