Eating like a local in south Tenerife
What a guachinche really is, the dishes worth learning by name, the wine grown on the slopes above you, and which market opens which day.
Canarian food is its own cuisine, not a regional variant of Spanish. It is built on potatoes, fish, goat, toasted grain flour and two sauces, and once you know six words you can order well anywhere on the island.
The six words
- Papas arrugadas — small unpeeled potatoes boiled in heavily salted water until the skins wrinkle and crust with salt.
- Mojo — the sauce. Red, made with paprika and garlic, for meat; the spicier version is mojo picón. Green, made with coriander or parsley, for fish. Canarian emigrants took it to Cuba, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.
- Gofio — flour of roasted grain, the staple for centuries. Stirred into milk at breakfast, rolled into a pella, or beaten into fish broth as escaldón.
- Almogrote — a paste of hard aged cheese, from La Gomera, which is fifty minutes away by ferry.
- Conejo en salmorejo — rabbit stewed in a coriander marinade. Nothing to do with the cold Andalusian tomato soup of the same name.
- Queso asado — grilled fresh goat cheese, usually with mojo. Order it and you will look like you have been here before.
About guachinches
A guachinche is a farmhouse eating place where a winegrower sells the surplus of their own harvest with a very short list of home dishes. Since a 2013 decree the rules are strict: only wine from the owner's own vineyard, a maximum of four months open per year, a maximum of three dishes, and operation from the farmer's own buildings. The decree cut roughly five hundred establishments to about seventy.
They are overwhelmingly a northern phenomenon, because that is where the smallholder wine culture is. Anything in Costa Adeje calling itself a guachinche is a restaurant. In the south, the equivalent institution is the casa de comidas and the fishing-village fish restaurant — which is no loss at all.
The wine is local in the literal sense
DO Abona covers southern Tenerife, recognised in 1996, with vineyards from 200 to 1,800 metres on the slopes of Teide above Granadilla and Vilaflor. Reds are Listán Negro and Tempranillo; whites Listán Blanco, Malvasía and Moscatel. It is grown in volcanic ash a few kilometres uphill from Palm-Mar and is generally cheaper than anything comparable in northern Europe.
Where to actually buy food
| Farmers market | Where | Days and hours |
|---|---|---|
| Arona | Valle San Lorenzo, Calle Cooperativa 2 | Fri and Sat 08:00–14:00 |
| San Miguel de Abona | Av. Modesto Hernández González 42 | Wed, Sat, Sun 08:00–14:00 |
| Granadilla de Abona | Plaza González Mena | Sat and Sun 07:00–14:30 |
| Adeje | Polígono Las Torres | Sat and Sun 08:00–13:30 |
| Guía de Isora | Plaza del Llano, Alcalá, Playa San Juan | Mon and Wed 08:00–13:00 |
The Arona market has free parking and step-free access, and is fifteen minutes from Palm-Mar. For everything else, Mercadona and HiperDino are the supermarkets residents use.
Fish, on a Sunday
Los Abrigos, twenty minutes east, is the working fish harbour and the standard Sunday lunch for southern residents. La Caleta in Adeje is a fishing village documented since at least 1573, with boats still hauled onto the slipway and three long-established fish restaurants on terraces over the water — book for a weekend dinner. Playa San Juan and Alcalá, further west, have working harbours and black-sand beaches with far fewer visitors.