Healy's Irish Bar — Restaurant in Estepona

.

A miniature Puerto Banus here in Estepona - and MUCH less tacky!

The marina in Estepona is a favourite spot of many people, until late in the night and early morning in summer, as the bars and restaurants are open late late late.

But it's also a pleasant place in the daytime, as those same bars and restaurants are open for a cooling drink and a wee rest.

By the way, it's probably best not to try to come here by car, although there is one carpark. If you do want to park, drive down the main entrance to the marina, turn first right and go to the end of the row of shops. The carpark is on the left, it's paying and pricey. The parking spaces along the road are mainly privately owned.

Otherwise, get there on foot.

Stroll along the Paseo Maritimo seafront promenade. At the very end you'll come to two rows of fishermen's huts, walk between them. At the right time of year you'll see Flying Fish hanging up to dry, and on most days people mending nets. At the end of these huts there's the La Escollera restaurant: read the reviews of that, and decide when you're coming back to eat the freshest fish ever!

Veer sort of right by the Escollera, and then take the road on the left. You'll come there to a building with a sort of, well, I don't know how to describe it! A sort of piazza on top. It is the flat roof of a harbour building that has been recently beautified, with some shade and places to sit and admire the view. The places to sit are metal and wood chairs, carefully sited so that when you are sitting down you cannot talk to the person sitting next to you.

:-)

But go up there anyway for a good view of the Marina (to your right) and the Fishing Port (straight ahead). You may even see a boat coming in, followed by a flock of seagulls as it brings its catch to unload at the "Lonja" - the wholesale fish market. See how close it is to La Escollera? That's why its fish is so fresh!

Continue along that little road to the beginning of the Marina.

The boats here are not on the same Billionaire scale as in Puerto Banus. They are just boats owned by people richer than you or me, I guess. But it's nice to potter around looking at them, buying an ice-cream in the lovely ice-cream parlour in the Control Tower, stopping for a coffee or a beer.

There is also here an enormous choice of restaurants. Italian, Indian, Chinese, general international cuisine. You won't go hungry, although it's mainly not very typically Spanish, if that's what you are looking for. But if your teenagers are moaning that they are being cruelly force-fed paella and gambas al ajillo, and thus being deprived of Chicken Jalfreezi, Pizza Marinara or Sweet and Sour Prawns, then this is the place!

If you should happen to have any stale bread in your pocket, you can throw bits into the water to attract a crowd of fish, some quite large - nearly two feet long. These fish are called Lisas in Spanish - no idea what the English is. They are inedible as they are scavengers in ports, but it's fun to watch them scrambling for the lumps of bread.

On Sunday mornings there's a market here which is generally very popular; they even have coach-loads of OAPs coming from 20 or 30 miles away some weeks.

Clothes, watches, sunglasses, jewellery (some nice silver stuff on a couple of stalls), CDs, belts, toys, leatherwear, paintings, hats and of course bags. Bags of bags!

The bars are packed on those days, so if you just want to sit at a terrace and nurse a cappuccino while you watch the folk go by, get...

I'd definitely be back. I went in for the Arsenal v Man U game. Was really busy but managed to grab a table.

There was a guy behind the bar, wearing a Celtic shirt, who made sure he acknowledged everyone who came up to the bar so you knew you'd been seen. He ran a tab in my name for me and made sure the other staff were aware who I was. It was a mad busy day and my last Guinness 0.0 was served with a warm glass, but I could see that he looked everywhere for a glass that wasn't just out the dishwasher and he apologised profusely. Top barman, great banter, defo made our experience even better.

The TV's seemed to be ran off of a satelite, so no buffering during the sport, although our TV did flicker on and off now and then, but I'm sure the team are aware of this and trying to find a solution.

Good can be bought in from a select couple of eateries near by.

Toilets were clean enough considering the amount of people in there.

All the other staff were also helpful and smiley.

If we're down that way again, we'll definitely be popping in to catch the game.

Well...

I've been here four weeks now was meant to be working but kept finding myself in here day after day, once you come in you just cannot find yourself to leave & the staff are amazing and great sense of humour ! Never had such a funny but amazing time in an Irish bar. The staff such as David always polite and ask if everything is okay and does a fantastic job works very hard, Shannon the captain of the bar always on top of everything never misses a order and lovely service, Chloe hard worker very polite and gives us the perfect attitude to work and to make customers laugh and feel welcomed, Rebecca is another one who will go out the way to make all ends meet great service kind and very well manned & hard worker ! Karl is an exceptional worker always happy to help out where ever it needs to be. Fran is another fantastic worker very down to earth never gets distracted from his job and hard working last but not least theirs Evan...

Evan...