Chiringuito Los Leones — Restaurant in Torremolinos

I recently visited Chiringuito Los Leones, and as a culinary enthusiast, I had high expectations, having heard it was awarded the best "espetero" on the Costa del Sol. The place exudes a typical beachside vibe, albeit with a recent renovation. The decor, while featuring some maritime touches, felt rather cold and didn't reflect the fact that this establishment has been open since 1962. The dining area is spacious, with plenty of tables.

Unfortunately, my experience was marred by subpar service. It took quite a while for the staff to take my order, and even longer for the dishes to arrive. To make matters worse, they brought all the plates together. When I requested the bill, I waited for 15 minutes before deciding to settle it at the bar myself.

Now, onto the food. I started with shrimp fritters, but they were overly salty, and there were disappointingly few shrimp in them; mostly, it was just fried batter. I also ordered the grilled octopus leg ("pata de pulpo al espeto"), and the quality of the octopus was subpar. Its texture was off, becoming somewhat pasty, and the accompanying cabbage side lacked coherence.

In the dessert section, I was disappointed to find that the menu didn't match what was available. Given the lack of proper storage (fruits and other desserts were openly exposed), I decided to skip dessert to avoid any flavor contamination.

In summary, my visit to Chiringuito Los Leones left much to be desired. While the setting and history were promising, the service and food quality fell short of expectations, making it challenging to fully appreciate its supposed accolades as the best "espetero"...

The worst customer service I have ever experienced in my life. When I first moved to Spain attended the restaurant and I thought the paella was great. Hence when my friends from London came to visit I brought them to the restaurant. In my paella I found a thick black hair and the waiter insisted that myself and my friend (2 blonde girls) dropped the thick black hair in. I would never say anything about an odd hair, just take it out and get on with life. But this was on top of the fact that my boyfriend and his friends orders a Sirloin steak (the most expensive steak on the menu) instead he received a skewer . We tried nicely to tell them that it’s not what they ordered and the restaurant can’t advertise a skewer as steak and charge €30. The staff were extremely rude, insisting we pay for what we ordered despite us not even touching the food. They were shouting and made my friend cry they were threatening to call the police and took our hairy paella away with words “they are girls they had enough food already”. Do not go there if you want to have a relaxing calm...

Terrible experience, the prawns we had to start with were undercooked and still grey in places, nobody came to check if everything was okay so we ate the pink cooked parts and mentioned this to the waiter when he took our plates. We then ordered the sea bream which was €19 on the menu, we pointed to it as the Spanish dish title was difficult to pronounce for us.

When the bill came we saw we had been charged €24 each for a different sea bream dish that we didn’t order, and some discount for the uncooked prawns wouldn’t have gone a miss!

When I challenged the waiter about it, his attitude was unacceptable, he said we should pay in full for the prawns as ‘they were only a little part uncooked’ and since we ate the sea bream dish we should pay for it. And we should know the difference.

It took getting up and facing the majority of staff to reach any resolution, they reluctantly changed the bream price to €18 only and nothing else.

Avoid this place...