Just got back after three weeks of parental leave on the quite beautiful island of Gran Canaria. As per usual, despite us now traveling with a 1-year old, our focus was mainly on eating lots of good food. We stayed in a holiday apartment, so we both did some cooking of our own, but also managed to visit a couple of good and great restaurants during our trip. We mostly went with local/Spanish, but made a few deviations to other countries’ cuisines.
We stayed in Meloneras, so most places we visited is in that area. But if you stay in Playa del Inglés or elsewhere in Maspalomas, buses are frequent, and you can also walk. We did it a couple of times with a stroller, it’s roughly an hours walk. Let me know if you find a pink baby slipper.
Meloneras
Time restaurant (Italian)
We felt that probably no restaurant in Meloneras that we visited catered to anyone but tourists, except (perhaps) Time. Time is not a fantastic restaurant by any means, but the pizza is solid, prices are decent (a pizza is roughly €12-15), service is restaurant-y in a normal way, not a tourist destination way, which we appreciated. And their semifreddo dessert was actually one of tastiest desserts we had during our stay.
Side note: The picture is from when we used Time for take out and not have they serve it in the restaurant.
El Senador
El Senador was our first and last dinner of the trip. The first time we walked in on chance because it looked nice, and was surprised by the food quality. The last time we went because it eventually turned into our favourite place to visit for a night cap or quick beer since our apartments had no bar of it’s own.
The food is beachy Spanish with the usual suspects such as jamon (they have a jamon carving man), padrónes, Canarian papas arrugadas and croquetas as well as their own takes on local dishes, seafood and their ’famous’ red tuna taco that is hideously expensive – €11 each – but very tasty. The level of food is quite high though and prices except for tacos aren’t too bad given its location nestled between luxury hotels, right on the beach. A decent size shareable tapa was around €10 and a large beer €5. Cocktails were really good too. Loved their Canarian negroni.
La Azotea del Velero
I was convinced this was a tourist trap and that the reviews were off, but despite us being almost alone in the restaurant and that the staff made a few moves to upsell us a bit, the food was surprisingly delicious. We had seafoody tapas with sizzling garlic prawns, deep-fried squid, padrónes, papas arrugadas, local aniseed bread with aioli, and on top of that delicious cocktails. Everything was really good, and the emptiness was probably mostly due to us arriving at 5:30 p.m. or the location at the touristy shopping street behind the beach.
El Caldero
Located on the touristy Boulevard de Faro which is lined with semi-fancy restaurants, El Caldero serves up some decent paella (and other rice dishes) for a relatively reasonable price. We had their fish and seafood paella, which you can have with the shells on, or pay some extra to have them removed. We chose the first option, but if you don’t want a messy dinner maybe the second is worth the extra 1 or 2 euros. The paella was quite good and came out served on a hot paellera. The fish and seafood was well cooked and seasoned, taste was nice and there was a hint of crust to the rice. The paella serving is quite large, so after a while the waiter came back and gave us a refill. We had a bottle of Albariño wine with the paella and it costed roughly €30. The paella was approximately €25 per person. They also had high chairs for our 1 year old, which was convenient.
La Bodega
Located in the Seaside Palm Beach hotel, La Bodega is a fancier restaurant with a focus on local food and tapas. The setting, we sat outside on their terrace, is very hotel-y and slightly fancy; you for instance need to have long pants to be allowed to dine there.
We made reservations by e-mailing the hotel and got quick replies and confirmation. When we arrived we were escorted by staff from the lobby to the restaurant and were then handed over to our waiter, it felt similar to arriving a Michelin star restaurant, a bit too formal, jut everyone was friendly.
Fortunately our waiter was quite relaxed and the food was really good, and not really anymore expensive than other restaurants in the area. The food is sort of a slightly fine dining take on local dishes, and we had almogrote cheese paste – a specialty from the Canarian island of La Gomera with bread that was really good. We also had Caldo de Millo, a local potato and sweetcorn stew with eggs and coriander. The perfectly poached egg reminding us we were in a fancy restaurant. The tuna tartare with avocado was great, meaty, almost iron-y tuna with soft, creamy avocado and a citrussy touch. Langoustine and garlic prawn croquetas with a mild dipping sauce (garlic?) were as good as the sound, but the finishing gofio (Canarian flour) brownie with banana ice cream was unfortunately a bit dry. All in all though, for roughly €100 including a bottle of Spanish rosé, this was on of the highlights of the trip.
El Churrasco (Argentine)
For our daughter’s first birthday we had made a reservation at El Churrasco, a steakhouse which we visited the Las Palmas outlet of, during our last visit to Gran Canaria in 2017, and which we really loved. I’m not sure if the Meloneras outlet always has been a bit more soulless because of the location, or if they have just overall deteriorated since we last visited. Anyway, we arrived to a nearly empty restaurant, mentioned our daughter’s birthday, got an ”oh okay” – of course they don’t have to make a big deal out of it, but maybe a happy birthday at least. Taking our order was so fast we didn’t even have time to order wine, they took our steak orders and left. When I ordered a glass of wine, again it was so fast my partner couldn’t order before the waiter again had left. She had to go to the bar herself since no one was around (again, in a nearly empty restaurant). Well, service aside, the food was quite nice with nicely grilled entrecôte with chimichurri butter (but soggy chips), views are great, and prices are okay (€25 steak, €10 cocktails, €7 glass of wine). Still, maybe I would go back for the views and the steaks.
Callao
Located next to El Senador right on the beach, and a part of the Hotel Faro, Callao serves local food fusioned with some South American twists. The place was usually quite empty when we passed by, but the menu was really intriguing and the restaurant and beach bar looked nice from the outside, so we decided to give them a try.
Service was quite slow, but after a while we were handed menus, and after another while we got to order. Last year in Barcelona we had some amazing Josper-grilled chicken in a steakhouse, and seeing they had a Josper grill and grilled chicken on the menu, we both decided to order that. We also ordered some bread which arrived served quite beautifully with butter, sea salt and delicious olive oil. The chicken arrived and was quite delicious, but unfortunately one of our chicken breasts were undercooked; pink and mushy. At this point, because it took ages to order and receive our food, and because no one was around, we just ate the food and cut off the undercooked parts. The waiter didn’t say anything about it when taking our plates and we were to chicken (hehe) to complain. Instead we ordered a cheesecake made with smoked Herreño cheese, which is a local Canarian cheese, that was delicious. So overall great food, but slightly undercooked chicken and super slow and a bit unattentive service.
Maspalomas/Playa del Inglés
Wapa Tapa
Another of our favourites from our 2017 visit to Gran Canaria is Wapa Tapa. Located in the Yumbo shopping center, it’s not the location where you might expect a really good tapas restaurant among the other touristy shops and restaurants, but there it is. Reservations are mandatory, we sat next to the entrance and there were walk-ins denied almost every minute, so the place is certainly popular.
We had noted in our reservation that we had been there before (you fill in a form where they ask this on their website) and when arriving the friendly owner came and greeted us personally which was fun and unexpected. They also took great care of our 1-year old, providing children’s cutlery, high chair and lots of joking which she really enjoyed.
Food-wise the standard was still high, but we felt it was slightly better during our first visit in 2017, when we had possibly the best tapas dinner ever. This time too we shared a bunch of dishes; jamon on tomato bread; fried herreño cheese; padrónes; Saharan calamares; papas arrugadas with mojo picon, and queen scallops. We also tried their desserts; one Filipino lemon flan, and a Basque cheese cake. Everything was tasty, but the jamon on tomato bread and the herreño cheese stood out as our favourites.
Greek Village
We got recommendations to visit the Greek restaurant Greek Village in Playa del Inglés by a person on Instagram, and since personal recommendations often work out well in my experience, we decided to skip the local fare for a day and head to the mediterranean. The restaurant is not overly large – outside where we sat there were perhaps 10 or so tables – so reservations in the evening might be a good idea. We went for lunch and got a table without problem, but it was nearly full as we left. For food we went straight for mains, and ordered the grilled lamb, which came with a choice of fries or rice, pita bread, a few vegetables and tzatziki, as well as a gyros platter, which had the pretty much the same sides. Food was quite tasty, but I think it would’ve been better to go for a few dips and salads as well as it was a bit meat and potato heavy to just order mains. Prices were okay for the area and we paid roughly €45 for our mains, water, a beer and a glass of Retsina.
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