Friday lunchtime at the tail end of January and it's everyone for fish and chips at Ocho, the restaurant that Leah Tilbury (sister of the make-up artist Charlotte) opened in Ibiza last summer. Literally, everyone.

There's Danny Whittle, creative director of Pacha, with his pregnant Ibicenco wife, Sally; there's Hayden Trethewy, owner of the recently revamped restaurant and bar Aura; there's Kristie Rogers, a local journalist for the online magazine White Ibiza; and there's Andy Baxter, one of Pacha's resident DJs, glowing with a tan from a new-year trip to Thailand.

Tilbury presides over the lunchtime service, dishing out the little plates of olives and alioli - “fish 'n' chips for two?” - and the atmosphere is one of villagey camaraderie.

This, say all the locals, is why they live in Ibiza. The hectic, hedonistic summers, when you're as likely to have time to linger over lunch as you are to find a tourist hoping for an early night, are but a means to this very “chillaxed” end. And now, thanks to Ryanair finally providing direct winter flights to Ibiza, we're all invited to spoil the idyll.

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Ever since Ibiza's left-wing Government came to power in 2007 it has been campaigning for a winter tourist season - something Majorca has always enjoyed. After all, temperatures top 15C in January and are as high as the mid-twenties by late March. But so far the Government's efforts have been focused on attracting Spanish pensioners to enjoy the charms of the White Isle off-season.

But this isn't a Mediterranean Eastbourne. Off-season Ibiza, while offering ample opportunity for catching up on your yoga, can still offer all the fun and games of your summer pilgrimage - but at a fraction of the cost and with a lot more respect for your brain cells. While in the summer everything is geared up to entice you out night after wallet-ravaging night, winter party action is restricted to a very respectable Friday and Saturday.

Later tonight the crowd from Ocho will rendezvous at Grial, a gritty, late-night bar next to Pacha, for a weekly party called Does Ya Mamma Know ... hosted by Sophie Macintosh, the woman responsible for the legend that is Bora Bora.

The DJ is long-time Ibiza resident Anthony Bryans, spinning a selection of island classics to a hands-in-the-air crowd of local faces. The vibe is up-all-night house party. Pacha is also open, but only in a very limited capacity (no terrace, boo!), as is Keepers in the marina and summer stalwart the Base Bar.

“It feels super-Balearic stopping off for a drink in the harbour this time of year,” says the perma-tanned and perma-smiling owner Jason Bull. Monthly Saturdays, meanwhile, see crazy fancy-dress action at Rock Nights - a party with an anything-goes music policy that cut its teeth in the summer and is still going strong at Somni in Figueretas.

But try to have an early-ish night, because it's true what they all say about the island at this time of year. The Sun hanging lower in the sky makes the rugged scenery stand out vividly - the vegetation is so green it almost glows in the dark.

The photography and location company 365 Productions says that its busiest months are March and April, when the world's top photographers flock to the island to snap it for fashion editorials and ad campaigns.

Walk off a hangover in the deserted north, and stop off among the almond blossom in Santa Agnes for a restorative tortilla at the village bar Can Cosmi; or head to Yemanja at Cala Jondal and nurse a bloody mary while the waves crash dramatically in to shore - a very different “scene” from the one that sprawls all over neighbouring Blue Marlin in high summer.

The sun moves several degrees west in winter too, which means that Cap D'es Falco, the next beach along from Salinas, comes into its own at sunset.

Ibiza has become so much more than just a clubbers' paradise in recent years; it caters to an older crowd for whom seven solid nights of hedonism are no longer viable. Off-season, with its knock-down prices, intimate party scene, fireside yoga sessions and deserted beaches, is the new time to enjoy everything the original pleasure island has to offer.

And don't worry about being intrusive. Ibiza's winter residents might say that they like having the place to themselves, but anybody who chooses to base themselves here full time has got a bit of party animal in them. A few gatecrashers on the scene are always going to be welcome.

Need to know

Where to stay

Ibiza's oldest agroturismo, Can Curreu (00 34 971 335 280, www.cancurreu.com), is open all year; a suite costs €100 less per night off-season, at €295; a double room at Atzaro (www.atzaro.com) costs €150, compared with €340 in high season.

In town, a junior suite at the new five-star Ibiza Gran Hotel (0034 971 806806, www.ibizagranhotel.com), costs €189, compared with €300 in high season, while a double room at the three-star Hostal Parque in the centre of town (0034 971 301358, www.hostalparque.com) is only €65 per night.

Getting there

Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) has direct flights all year (from Stansted and Liverpool).

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