Fortresses, Fincas and Formentor: The 10 Best Hotels in Mallorca

The spa at Cap Rocat is cut 12 metres into the rock, and daylight still reaches its saltwater pool. Above it stands our winner, a sandstone fortress at Cap Enderrocat that was built to defend the Bay of Palma and never had to. It is a National Monument now, converted into a hotel by the studio of the architect Antonio Obrador, with a 30-hectare nature reserve and 2 km of protected coast around it.

Book a Sentinel if you can. Each one is dug out of the rock where a cannon stood, with a small private pool and a terrace on the cliff edge. Suite El Cabo goes bigger, with three vaulted sections, three terraces and a gazebo facing the bay.

La Fortaleza seats 30 for dinner, cooked by chef Víctor García. In summer the dining room climbs to the roof, into a pavilion modelled on an old seaplane hangar. Phones stay out of the bar and the restaurants, and restaurant bookings with children are accepted only for children over 15. Couples after a quiet dinner will be glad of both rules. Families do better at Son Bunyola or the Four Seasons below.

Olive groves, almond trees and vines run down about three miles of coast to a pebble beach that belongs to Son Bunyola. Book it if you want the Tramuntana and the sea in the same view. Virgin Limited Edition's estate covers 810 acres between Banyalbufar and Esporles, and it has held a MICHELIN Key since the 2025 guide.

The finca at its centre dates to around the 16th century. Its two towers are now the Tower Suites, three floors each, with a roof terrace on top and a 360-degree view. There are 27 rooms and suites in all. Bigger groups take the villas, each with a private heated pool. Children of every age are welcome, and the estate keeps resident donkeys to prove it.

Lunch and dinner taste of the land. At Sa Terrassa, chef Brenda Lisiotti cooks with produce from the estate's gardens and honey from its hives. The estate made wine in the 19th century, and in spring 2026 it released its first own-label Malvasia in over a century, sold only on site. The spa has just two treatment rooms, so book your massage when you book the room. The hotel opens from March to November, and two of the villas stay open all year.

A resident artist works in the sculpture studio at Belmond La Residencia, and some of the rooms are set up as artist studios. That suits Deià, a mountainside village of about 600 people with a long line of artists behind it. The hotel has been part of it since 1984, in two old manor houses on the slope. More than 800 original artworks hang in the rooms, there is a gallery, and the all-day Restaurante Miró takes its name from the 33 Joan Miró works on its walls.

Ask for the Miró Suite or Villa Robert Graves, two of the 67 rooms and suites. Dinner is chef Pablo Aranda's tasting menu at El Olivo, and three of the spa's six treatment rooms open onto terraces. The awkward part is the beach. Cala Deià is a downhill walk away, and the walk back is uphill.

A grand staircase runs from the hotel down to Formentor Beach, a kilometre of Blue Flag sand at the northern tip of the island. The Argentinian art patron Adan Diehl dreamed up the Hotel Formentor, and it opened in 1929. Winston Churchill, Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn all stayed. Four Seasons runs it now as the Four Seasons Resort Mallorca at Formentor, on an estate of 486 hectares.

Families have it easy here, with a free kids' club for ages 4 to 12, suites of up to three bedrooms and an adults-only pool for the hour you need one. Llum i Sal is the restaurant on the sand, and the Finca Table is laid among the resort's own vineyards. Getting there is the drawback. Palma Airport is about an hour by car, and from mid-May to mid-October cars on the peninsula need advance authorisation during the day.

The Mallorcan chef Jordi Cantó builds his menu around the island's winds at Sa Clastra, the Michelin-starred restaurant of Castell Son Claret. It is the reason to come. You arrive along 200 metres of palms, and at the end stands a 19th-century castle on a 132-hectare estate near Es Capdellà, with records going back to 1450.

Sleep where the Castell family did, since the Tower Suites fill their original private quarters. The Water Tower Duplex climbs a spiral stair to the bed. Sa Clastra and the spa both take guests aged 14 and over only. For the sea, give the concierge 48 hours and they will book you sunbeds at a partner beach club in Port d'Andratx.

A spring-fed well, a private chapel and a 17th-century courtyard all survive at Grand Hotel Son Net, a manor from 1672 in the Tramuntana village of Puigpunyent, 16 km from Palma. The designer Lorenzo Castillo restored the interiors. Almost a hectare of Malvasia went into the ground in 2006, and the estate's own wine is poured in the hotel's restaurants.

The spa is the other draw. It covers more than 1,000 m², and its heated indoor pool is treated with sea salt. Book the Grand Son Net Suite, 150 m² with an arched portico over the pool and the valley. Come in spring or summer if you want to eat at El Gazebo, the poolside restaurant, because those are the only seasons it opens.

Santanyí holds its market on Wednesdays and Saturdays at the Plaza Mayor, a few metres from the door of Can Ferrereta. The hotel is a 17th-century mansion in the centre of town, and the family that restored it hung it with Jaume Plensa and Joan Miró. Dinner at Ocre is down in the old wine cellar, under a stone arch carrying a 17th-century graffito. The Nest rooms are a snug 27 m², so pick a suite if you like space. The Pool Suite has its own garden and a heated plunge pool, and Es Trenc beach is close by.

Dinner at Pleta de Mar comes off a wood-fired grill. The restaurant is Sa Pleta, and the name behind it is Marc Fosh, the first British chef to win a Michelin star in Spain. The 30 suites are tucked into pine woods on the seafront at Canyamel, on the north-east coast, each with a private terrace and an outdoor shower. The Grand Suite has a pool of its own. Guests must be 16 or over, so families should look at the Four Seasons or Jumeirah instead.

The rooftop pool at Sant Francesc Hotel Singular looks over Palma's roofs to the Cathedral, a few steps away. This is the one to book for Palma itself. Under the 200 m² terrace and its sundeck is a 19th-century mansion on Plaza Sant Francesc, where the stables now hold the Quadrat restaurant, the cistern holds the gym and the watchtower is a guest room. Superior rooms are 25 m², so for a longer stay take the Sant Francesc Suite. It keeps its 19th-century frescoes and has two French balconies over the square.

The Lighthouse Suite at Jumeirah Mallorca comes with a 220 m² terrace and a jacuzzi on the roof. The resort sits high on the cliffs above Port de Sóller, with 81 rooms and 40 suites, a free shuttle down to the port and a free kids' club for ages 3 to 12. Check the dates if you are coming for dinner, because Es Fanals, the fine-dining room, closes for the season.