The best restaurants in Tenerife to get it right for sure
The gastronomic critic of ABC travels to Tenerife to prepare a guide with the latest and the best of the island's gastronomy
For a few years now, Tenerife has eaten better and better. The successful work of the Island Council with a successful gastronomy plan that allowed recovering and promoting popular cuisine and at the same time supporting young chefs had a lot to do with the great step forward that Tenerife cuisine has taken, in terms of quantity and quality. gastronomic reference of the Canaries . Although there are good restaurants with island cuisine, curiously, almost all of the most outstanding ones correspond to foreign cuisines.
There are, for example, two of the best Japanese cuisine establishments in Spain, Kazan and Abama Kabuki , both with Michelin stars. The first, in the center of Santa Cruz , the capital, is the result of the efforts of a doctor and gourmet, Fran Relea, which has spared no expense until having a high-level restaurant based on the use of the best possible product, part of which imports directly from the peninsula. Excellent product and common sense are the keys to this house. Uzusukuris of mackerel and fresh ginger and red mullet in salpicón, bull sashimi with fresh wasabi, crayfish in two stages: the body raw, in a niguiri, and the head, without the claws, fried to eat in one bite ... and a high level of niguiris complete with a level cellar. The second is located in the south of the island, in the luxurious Abama hotel . In this case, the gastronomic advisor is Ricardo Sanz, well known for its two Kabukis in Madrid and the best representative of Spanish-Japanese fusion cuisine. This is in the line of its Madrid brothers but with many incorporations of local products, especially the good fish from the Tenerife coast. Impeccable quality, very successful cuts, perfect presentations, and much imagination in the elaborations.
Also in the Abama hotel is another of the starred Tenerife, M. B , which has two macaroons from the Red Guide. The initials MB correspond to those of Martín Berasategui , gastronomic advisor of the restaurant in which one of his best disciples, Erlantz Gorostiza, works as head chef. Luxury space, details taken care of to the maximum and a very professional room team. As for the kitchen, it maintains the impeccable line of Berasategui but Gorostiza brings its own personality and is strongly committed to the Canarian product. Another must-visit restaurant is El Rincón de Juan Carlos , in Los Gigantes, the point of the island furthest from the capital. The Padrón brothers (Juan Carlos cook, Jonathan pastry chef) offer a cuisine with a very defined personal line. They play skillfully with broths and juices to give intensity to dishes in which local products are always the protagonists, although in elaborations open to everyone. The cooks' wives, María José and Raquel, manage the living room and cellar well.
In another luxurious hotel in the south of the island, the Bahía del Duque , we find the Las Aguas restaurant , with the La Gomera chef Braulio Simancas , who made himself known in a modest tavern on the outskirts of Santa Cruz: El Silbo Gomero . His are very current recipes based on the product and the Canarian tradition, in which he plays with the herbs and spices of the islands, many of them cultivated by himself. An attractive current vision of Canarian cuisine. Also in a southern hotel, the Costa Adeje Tropical Garden , there is a gastronomic point of interest, Las Rocas . Very interesting offer, exclusively marine, from Jorge Peñate. Product of quality, technique and elegance in equal parts, combined with an exquisite treatment of the point of the fish. Powerful funds and the traditional Canarian recipe book as a base. Peñate, an outstanding disciple of Braulio Simancas, won the Canarian chefs championship in 2014
Returning to the capital, La Posada del Pez is a small restaurant located in the town of San Andrés , very close to Santa Cruz. The Galician chef, Carlos Villar, and his wife, Silvia Puertas, from Barcelona, who tends the room with great kindness and efficiency, do it very well. Good product, treated with success, in a line that points more to the traditional. The black cherne dishes stand out. Villar has partnered with the young Peruvian Tadashi Tagami to open, in the lower part of La Posada, Abikore , a restaurant with a very personal cuisine, with Nikkei touches.
The classic among the classics of Santa Cruz is El Coto de Antonio , a must for those looking for traditional cuisine. Its mojos with potatoes and the popular island cheese fried with palm jam are essential. It is also one of the most recommended places to discover the peculiar Canarian stew. They also tend to have shrimp, which are abundant in the deep waters that surround Tenerife. Another specialty is fried kid, served with black "wrinkled" potatoes. And to top it off, the very sweet and powerful mole egg. Finally, also note San Sebastián 57, next to the market, with an interesting review of traditional Tenerife cuisine and at the same time a wine bar.
In the north of the island, a couple of notes of interest. In Puerto de la Cruz, Brunelli’s , the personal bet of the German Wolfgang Kiessling , owner of the Botánico Hotel and the Loro Parque. A meat enthusiast, he has opted to take it to Tenerife, where he hardly had a presence. Large pieces imported from the Peninsula and other parts of the world that are dry-matured for about 30 days using an advanced camera system and roasted in a very special oven, the American Southbend, capable of reaching 800 degrees. The site, hanging over the sea, is also especially beautiful. And very close, in La Matanza, La Bola , where Jorge Bosch updates with common sense the traditional island cookbook inspired by the popular guachinches.
