Peaking in Ibiza With EDITION and El Silencio

Our Executive Editor Ben Barna heads to Ibiza with EDITION Hotels, even though the brand, for all its global clout, doesn’t actually have a hotel on the island. Instead, they’ve joined forces with El Silencio to stage The Summer EDITION, a poolside pop-up at the famed Parisian nightclub’s Ibiza outpost. The result proves that EDITION isn’t just a hotel chain, it’s a vibe.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, IBIZA

1:59 PM.

We arrive at the airport. Like the one in Las Vegas, it instantly lets you know where you are. There are ads for mega clubs and their resident DJs everywhere. Calvin Harris at Ushuaia, Carl Cox at Univrs. Welcome to the birthplace of the fist pump. 

3:30 PM

I meet my hosts for the weekend in the hotel lobby. Bryce from Marriott and Dom from Purple. They inform me that it’s just the three of us this weekend, along with my wife Sasha, and I couldn’t be more pleased. 

4:14 PM

I bump into our social media editor Julian who’s staying at the same hotel. He’s here with Patrón for a Boiler Room event along with some other writers and editors. One of them is Raoul who works at Pop Crave. Over spritzes in the pool, he tells me the inner workings of the mysterious news account and says that all of his job takes place on his phone.  

5:30 PM

We stroll along the promenade in Sant Antoni, the second biggest city on the island and ground zero for Brits on a bender. There are packs of guys rocking the Paul Mescal mini mullet everywhere.

9:30 PM

Dinner is at Macao Café Sta Gertrudis, an Italian place in a cute town in the middle of the island. My first instinct was, “Why aren’t we eating fresh seafood by the beach with bottle sparklers and super yachts in the distance?” But as soon as I walked in, I got it. The place was enchanting—a leafy, lantern-lit courtyard, humming with people enjoying dishes like ravioli and their signature veal milanese. Taika Waititi, in town to celebrate his 50th, and his bride Rita Ora were two of those people, and so was Kate Moss, who I spotted on her way to the bathroom. 

1:14 AM

Dinner ends after midnight, and normally that’s bedtime. But we’re on Ibiza time, so we heard to Amnesia to see the legendary queer DJ collective Horse Meat Disco, part of the Homobloc party. The night was young, but you couldn’t tell inside. On stage were flamboyant leather daddies—wrestlers-meet-go-go dancers—doing their best to get the crowd going, but they seemed more interested in filming than dancing. 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 15

2:05 PM

Tonight is the launch for The Summer Edition, but first we must beach. Ibiza is what you make it. Yes, there are marathon nights of clubbing and sunrise afterparties at villas, but  it’s also an island in the Mediterranean, blessed with some of the most beautiful coastline in the world,  all rocky coves, azure waters, and dramatic cliffs. Nowhere is that more obvious than Cala Conta, one of Ibiza’s most photographed stretches. Arriving by ferry felt like stepping straight into my Instagram feed circa August, but now it was my turn to post. 

5:12 PM

And post I did. A story of a restaurant overlooking the water causes a bunch of  people to respond asking me if I’m at Sunset Ashram. I am! One of the most popular spots on the island, famous for its front-row view of Ibiza’s legendary sunsets.

7:11 PM

Back at the hotel, Julian is by the pool on his laptop because Interview’s Instagram needs content like I need a beverage. 

9:03 PM

We pull up to El Silencio for the main event. Our names are not on the list but Bryce comes to get us right away. Proving to the door person that you are in fact on the list even when you’re not is more satisfying than being on the list. The vibe inside is elevated and rustic at the same time. Polished bohemian chic.

9:16 PM

Poolside cocktails before dinner, my favorite part of any night. There are custom EDITION pool floats and a sign pointing to EDITION hotels all over the world. I strike up a conversation with EDITION Hotels Senior Vice President and Global Brand Leader George Fleck.  He tells me a bit more about how they’re reimagining the hotel experience within the unique setting of a beach club, as he puts it, and I tell him that Toronto, where I’m from, is overdue for an EDITION to call its own. He agrees. 

10:04 PM

Dinner is served outdoors at one long table. The family-style menu leans Japanese. Think toro sandos and wagyu donburi. I’m seated between my wife and Amy, a friendly girl who lives in Tokyo but misses L.A.. Across from us is Frank Roberts, EDITION’s VP of Brand Experience, a true life-of-the-party type who’s known Ian Schrager, EDITION’s original visionary, for years. He’s one of several people I talk to going to Taika’s birthday party tomorrow night. 

12:11 AM

The party moves inside, where a DJ plays party hits club bangers for a group that includes Romy and a Gallagher son. Normally, this would be the after party but in Ibiza it’s just a warm up. 

1:51 AM

We pull up to Pikes, Ibiza’s most storied playground. Opened in 1980 by Tony Pike, it’s been the backdrop for some of the island’s most notorious and star-studded nights. Decades later, it remains a sprawling maze of rooms and courtyards where bohemian whimsy bleeds into sweaty dance floors. Outside are two competing lines, both of them hellishly long, but the EDITION crew parts them and ushers us straight through. 

2:21 AM

Pikes has a strict no-photo policy, enforced by stickers over your phone camera. They miss mine, and when I can’t resist sneaking a shot of the dance floor (it was actually to show someone in our group where we were), a bouncer threatens to throw me out.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 16

12:35 PM

We’re back at The Summer Edition for a mid-afternoon sail on their solar-powered eco-catamaran. Julian, who was out late the night before, rallies and joins us. The group is a mix of people, among them a fabulous British woman named Tiggy, who mentions she drove all the way from London to Ibiza with a friend. She stopped off in Puglia, where she was considering buying a house, but said the place is overrun with mafia and all her friends who moved there are slaves to Airbnb. Another guest introduces herself and says she  used to save money to buy every issue of Interview back in the ‘70s and ‘80. On the boat it dawns on me that she’s Karen Bins, the illustrious stylist who was one of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s closest confidantes and contributed to our recent oral history about his days at Area. 

3:32 PM

Back on land, the EDITION crew is dining al fresco and gossiping about last night. The rosé is flowing and brazino, grilled chicken, red prawns, and octopus all hit the table. Andrea Franchini, the Global Brand Director of Culture & Entertainment at EDITION mentions he’s been in touch with Interview consigliere Jeremy O. Harris about hosting the after-party for the TIFF premiere of Erupcja, Jeremy’s new film with Charli XCX, at the W Toronto.

4:25 PM

Lunch flows into a pool party at The Summer Edition. I run into the photographer Matt Weinberger, in town with The Dare ahead of his set tomorrow night at Pacha, where he’ll share the bill with Solomun, the undisputed king of Ibiza. Matt offers to put me and my wife on the list which of course I accept, though if I’m honest, I already doubt I’ll have the stamina to actually make it.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17

1:32 AM 

I was wrong. We went through the “Pacha Family” entrance and into the VIP garden. From there we go into the main room where The Dare is playing booming house to a sea of people who were probably there to see Solomun, but who couldn’t help falling under his spell. 

2:22 AM

Matt finds us back in the garden and insists I need to meet Solomun’s publicist, José. At the door I spot Jeremy O. Harris, and Matt goes to get him. José appears and suddenly we’re winding through Pacha’s labyrinth of staircases and secret rooms. Before I know it, I’m in a back lounge thick with people doing stuff. Solomun’s manager Daniel, a friendly guy from Hamburg, introduces himself. I stumble into a conversation with Aloki Batra, the CEO of the Pacha Group. What we talked about, I couldn’t tell you.

3:21 AM

Finally, the moment we’ve been waiting for. José leads us out, past security, and behind the DJ booth just as Solomun is playing to an enraptured crowd. He takes a shot of tequila with The Dare and I take in the view from the Ibiza mountaintop.