Restaurante: Las Castañuelas — Restaurant in Ronda

We come to Ronda often, and love eating here. Finding this little gem of a restaurant is easy.

Start off at the Alameda Park, that public garden that has the fabulous views across the Plain of Ronda. At the entrance to the park is a big church with a flight of steps and two palm trees – it’s the church of Nuestra Señora de la Merced. Go up the street to the right of the church, Calle Jerez. Just 30 seconds along past the church, with an orange tree outside, is the Bar Las Castañuelas.

Don’t be afraid to go in. It looks like a modest bar, it IS a modest bar, you will need to push through the customers thronging around the television and the bar at the front. At the back is the dining room with not very many tables.

It is charming, with traditional tilework on the walls, a wrought-iron screen separating it from the front bar, and if you got here early, a table for you.

As there are so few tables, it is a good idea to get here early, say by 1.30, to be sure of not missing out. We often come here after doing the long walk down to the Plain of Ronda below the town, so we stop off at Las Castañuelas en route, just as we are staring our trek, and reserve a table for 2 hours’ time.

What to eat?

Just about anything!

There is the menu – called La Carta – with all typical Andalusian things to try. It will be freshly cooked for you in the kitchen by the wife of Paco the owner. He is also the waiter – elderly chap with a shock of white hair – and when he gives you the menu he will probably recite, very fast, in Spanish, a list of other things that were looking good when he went to the market that morning.

Never mind if you can't understand what he offers - just read the Carta. Whatever you choose, it will be fresh, of good quality, cooked to perfection, and you will enjoy it.

There may be other customers. I say "may be", because Ronda people eat late, so you may be in and out before they turn up. There will be perhaps a family group, a couple of businessmen, and a table of Ladies who Lunch - probably widowed rather than divorced. People watching can be fun here. In 10 or 12 years of going there half a dozen times or more each year, I have never ever seen anyone foreign. You may be the first ones! Get ready to practice your Spanish, though . . .

TIP 1: For four adults, you might like to have, say, 2 or 3 dishes at first to share "para compartir", then a main course each.

TIP 2: How about, as the sharing dishes: gambas cocidas (boiled prawns - delicious!), salmonetitos (fried baby red mullet) and chipirones (fried baby squid). If Paco hasn't got those, he'll suggest an alternative.

TIP 3: Don't have coffee there. Nothing wrong with it, but a five or ten minute stroll (depending on how much you ate!) up the road brings you to the Hotel Reina Victoria. Go to the bar (through the front door and then all the way to the right). Go outside there and have your coffee on the edge of the precipice.

You will now know why it is our favourite place to...

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