Ten Tips for Eating in Traditional Restaurants on Tenerife

I’ve been carrying out research recently which partly involved reading Tenerife restaurant reviews. I have a slightly masochistic love of reading restaurant reviews. The more they make me exclaim “YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS” , the more I like reading them.

Certain topics come up on a regular basis that can result in restaurants being given negative reviews which are undeserved for a number of reasons. These reasons are often cultural ones, which is understandable. Visitors who are unfamiliar with the culture can’t be expected to know how things work. But that doesn’t necessarily warrant a restaurant being given a bad review.  Cultural differences might explain why some restaurants get great reviews from locals but not from visitors, and vice versa.

With this in mind here are ten tips to eating in traditional restaurants on Tenerife.

Dining too early, Tenerife

Get the timing right
People regularly remark about a lack of atmosphere or an absence of other diners in traditional restaurants. Stick to popular British eating hours and that’s no surprise. Lunch here is eaten after 1.30pm and dinner can be anywhere after 8.30pm. Eating lunch at midday or dinner at 7pm in a Canarian restaurant and you could be dining in a restaurant with all the atmosphere of the nearest cemetery.

Bread basket, Tenerife

The bread basket
A basket of bread is one of the first things to arrive on the table even though you haven’t requested it. Mostly this isn’t a freebie, diners are usually charged for bread. Personally I like having bread with my meal mainly because of the next tip on the list. Sometimes you might be asked if you want bread, often you won’t. But if you don’t want bread say so as soon as it arrives at the table.

I can’t believe it’s not butter
Often with the bread comes things to dip it in or spread on it. Normally this doesn’t include butter. In the more contemporary Canarian restaurants, flavoured butters are increasingly common. But in traditional ones the chances are you’ll get mojos (Canarian sauces) or alioli (garlic mayonnaise). I’ve read comments saying it was strange to be served mayonnaise with the bread. Strange maybe in Tenby, but it’s the done thing on Tenerife.

alioli, Tenerife

Slow food is good
Slow service is a common complaint. When we first started travelling together we treated dining as something to get over quickly so we could hit the bar. Restaurants on Greek Islands drove us barmy with the snail’s pace of a service. But over the years we came to view the meal as the evening’s entertainment. Living here has consolidated that. We lose afternoons over lunch and dinner can last for hours. The culture here, as it is in other parts of Spain, is that dining is to be enjoyed at a leisurely pace. Service can reflect this.

Spanish menu, Tenerife

The mystifying menu
We always ask for the menu in Spanish even in restaurants in the heart of Puerto de la Cruz which are used to serving a variety of nationalities. It’s good for our Spanish and what’s more, English translations aren’t always accurate. Shortly after we arrived Andy ended up in one restaurant with a cold terrine after ordering what had been described as a fish pie (visions of chunky fish and prawns topped by creamy mash). In one restaurant we know there are items on the Spanish menu that aren’t on the English version. It’s worth asking for an English and a Spanish menu so you can compare and contrast.

Friendly waitress, La Orotava, Tenerife

Rude staff
I’m constantly reading about surly staff in restaurants where we’ve only ever encountered amiable ones. We have had experiences with waiters who came across as rude or surly, but not usually in traditional areas. This is Tenerife amable after all.
On many occasions we’ve witnessed communication problems due to language differences. Waiters struggling to understand what a customer wants can be interpreted as rudeness. English isn’t as widely spoken as people might expect and attempting a couple of basic words in Spanish goes a long way to unlocking smiles and a different attitude.

Local wine, Tenerife

Go local with the wine
Forget Rioja and Ribera del Duero and try the local wine. There are some excellent Tenerife wines; literally award winners. There are over 70 bodegas on Tenerife producing white, red, rosé and sparkling wines with varying flavours. Look at some online discussions about wine on Tenerife and you wouldn’t know Tenerife produced its own wines as they’re dominated by suggestions for mainland brands. We only buy local wines now.

Meat platter, Tenerife

Murdering steak
In a restaurant a friend asked for her steak to be well done, adding “you know, that way which makes it really tender.” The waiter replied candidly, “but if you want it well done it won’t be tender.”
The number of reviews which criticise restaurants because the steak didn’t have the flavour and tenderness burnt out of it has me banging my head against a wall. The behind-the-scenes book Kitchen Confidential revealed chefs kept the worst cut of sirloin for diners who requested steaks ‘well done’ because they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a good steak and a bad one after it was turned into ‘a flavourless, leathery hunk of carbon’. Often on Tenerife steaks which were supposed to be ‘well done’ arrive with a pink middle, the chef clearly unable to massacre a good piece of meat. I mentioned this to a friend and he responded “if I like it well done then surely that’s my choice and I shouldn’t be criticised for it?” I totally agree… as long as he doesn’t then post a review online criticising a restaurant for serving him with a perfectly cooked steak instead of one which has been ruined.

Fish, potatoes, no veg, Tenerife

Where are the vegetables?
A lack of any decent vegetables is a regular cause for complaint from British visitors. A variety of vegetables turn up in stews on Tenerife but rarely accompanying meat or fish. The best you’re likely to get is a bit of salad which is more garnish than anything else. In the words of Bruce Hornsby & the Range, that’s just the way it is.

Tipping in a restaurant, Tenerife

One final tip
There’s no expectation when it comes to tipping on Tenerife. We always left 10% until a Canarian friend told Andy off for leaving too much. Locals just round up if they leave a tip at all. Now we do the same and round up…  to something close to 10%. Old habits die hard.

About Jack 434 Articles
Jack is co-editor, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to online travel sites and travel magazines. Follow Jack on Facebook

9 Comments

  1. Nice review.I enjoyed reading this and I agree with all of your comments.We really enjoy being more adventurous and go to Canarian restaurants as often as we can.We took our very stressed 27 year old son to a lovely tapas restaurant last week.He had managed to squeeze 4 days of holiday with us.We went to Los Gigantes harbour and he ordered his food in Spanish and chilled and watched the world go by,then practically floated out of the restaurant several hours later.It was a joy.
    Well done ,keep up the good work and photographs

  2. Excellent review, thanks for that. One of the great joys of visiting Tenerife is the great food and service. I’m getting most things right it seems, except that I eat too early and tip too much. Looking forward to my next visit in September. I have a trip to GC before that, so I can practice your good advice there.

    • Cheers David. We still tip too much, but we were okay with the eating hours as it took us so long to get home from work at night in Britain we were used to Spanish hours before we set foot on Tenerife 🙂 Have a good time in GC. We spend quite a bit of time there and like it nearly as much as Tenerife (don’t tell anyone on Tenerife that).

  3. fine dining or eating…we live on gran canaria and just like to mention that many a REAL eatery…where locals go eat real canarian food…often do not have printed listings of what is on offer. you have to ask..then they run through up to 6 or 7 prepared dishes not unlike british pubs, but off course canarian food. no bangers and mash, but do try the ‘old clothes’ or wrinkly ‘
    potatoes’. rabbit or a bit of goat are some of my favourites. servings are sometimes huge and the and I and my wife like to order several ‘half portions’ and eat family style, cheap eats, the real deal…and local atmosphere…well if you are hoping to find a hard rock cafe experience…better stay with the pricey coastal tourist places.

    • We’ve stayed in those Gran Canaria hills quite a few times. There are similarities across all the islands and yet also differences. In Tenerife it’s common for restaurants to have menus, even if all the customers are usually Canarian. Not so much in the case of Guachinches, which you don’t have on GC. The beauty of the bigger islands especially is you can eat basic local food, good quality, good value and big portions or you can get more sophisticated but still traditional fare in restaurants which are well off the beaten track. There’s a wonderful gastronomic culture.

  4. I love what you said about viewing the meal as the evening’s entertainment and how it should be taken slow. I think that authentic restaurants are harder to find these days, so it’s important to contact a company or service that knows where to get the good stuff. My wife and I are planning a trip to Florida in the coming months, so we’ll make an effort to find some authentic places to eat with the help of a reliable service.

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