Restaurants in and around Ronda.

By John Gill

Restaurants near Ronda

Molino del Santo , Boulevardia Estación de Benaoján (952 16 71 51)

Actually in the outlying village of Benaoján, a short train, bus or cab ride from downtown Ronda, El Molino has been unofficially adopted by Ronda as its favourite countryside hotel-restaurant. The meat and vegetarian friendly kitchen is run on organic lines, and you can eat on the idyllic terrace under weeping willows by a rushing mill stream (hence the name; molino, mill). A treat.

El Vapor , Ronda-Algeciras railway line, Arriate

One of many former rail almacens, storerooms, on the railway line - there are others further down the line (and a great little bar on the platform at Benaojan) - that have been turned into restaurants, this has a traditional Andaluz menu, a bar, and an outdoor area where you can wave at the trains.

Quercus , Ronda-Algeciras railway line, Jimera de Libar

Yet another roomy rail shed at a picturesque spot on one of the most dramatic train journeys in Europe (and handy for the end of Guy Hunter-Watts’s ‘The Walk of Mr Henderson’s Railway’, URL??). The name is the latin for oak, a reference to the surrounding cork forests, largest in Europe, and the menu is fittingly traditional.

Non-Spanish restaurants

Chinese

New World , calle Lauria (a block down from the bus station)

Most of Ronda's Chinese restaurants are dire - unlike north European Chinese cuisine, this is often simply cooked meats dunked into a helping of accompanying sauce, and the monosodium glutamate doesn't help. But the New World feels more like a north European Chinese restaurant, not least in its excellent Peking Duck. And they don't stare at you irritatedly if you ask for chopsticks.

Italian

There's something of an overlap in Italian and Spanish foods anyway, especially in the pizza department, and there are a number of restaurants on both sides of the cultural divide that do both. Best, however, are the three restaurants run by Italian pizza chef Giuseppe Vuoccono, Peppe Nonno. The original is midway on calle Nueva, where he built a huge domed brick pizza oven and uses those long wood scoops to handle his crisp, thin pizzas. The second is at the end of calle Nueva, opposite the Parador; the third on Remedios, next to La Leyenda. Each also offers pasta and meat dishes, and a reasonable chianti. Try also Marco Polo, on calle Lorenzo Borrego off the top of the Plaza de Soccoro, and El Vulcan, on calle Sevilla, a block up from the Plaza Carmen Abela, off calle Espinel. At all costs, avoid takeaway pizza outlets; they're soggy and half-cooked disasters.

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