El Refugio – Zahara de Los Atunes

Lovely restaurant with views of the beach, a simple but romantic design, with a white and blue decor.

We arrived around 8.30 pm as we didn’t book a table and we wanted to be sure to get one, given the reputation this place enjoys; luckily, although the restaurant gets quiet busy at dinner time, we were still offered a table with views of the beach.

Immediately, we noticed that the service was very attentive without being obtrusive; our waiter explained the dishes and checked if everything was OK with our meal throughout the dinner.

As a starter, we opted for the potato and tuna salad made with the local tuna, which was delicious and was enough for the two of us to share. In fact was so delicious that I will prepare it at home as well, although I am sure canned tuna from the supermarket will not have the same taste and freshness as the one we had…

For main we took grilled tuna (yep, we love it!) and Iberico pork.

The tuna as expected was very fresh, cooked still pink in the middle, sprinkled with salt flakes, accompanied with couscous, and a pimiento sauce that was delicious.

The Iberico pork was very tender with a melt in the mouth texture, it also came accompanied with potatoes and the pimiento sauce.

The bottle of red that we ordered, a rioja from Bilbao region, was a very good match to our meal; although maybe white wine would have been more appropriate with the tuna, I am not a white wine drinker unfortunately. It won’t take long before you will notice how many times a bottle of red (or two!) will be part of these reviews…

Since we were very happy with the food so far, we decided to share a dessert, a homemade layered sponge with stracciatella cream that was really delicious; please note that this comment comes from a person that doesn’t have a sweet tooth, so this means that it was extremely good!

Overall was a very good meal, quite straightforward cooking, using local ingredients at their best, great location and very good service.

A final special mention goes to the waiters that were really nice and professionals; they were also being able to entertain an 18 months baby on a neighboring table. It was great!

Food Quality: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Value for Money: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Service: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Verdict: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Categories: Restaurant review, Spain