[Costa Adeje, Tenerife, Spain] Sucas

The food at Sucas is some of the most enjoyable we’ve ever eaten in Tenerife. In fact, of all the restaurants on the island that we’ve eaten in, Sucas is probably the one we’d most like to pack up and take back to the UK, so we can become regulars. It’s modern, inventive cuisine that still draws inspiration from the food of the island.

Prawn croquettes are about as traditional a Spanish starter as you get. An outer coating fried to crisp, encasing the prawns in a thick béchamel sauce. But the twist here is to lightly flavour the béchamel with curry spices. It works.

Prawns also featured in the other starter, battered and fried to crisp to top a Thai style salad. Yes, there’s vermicelli, salad leaf and pepper. And there’s citrus in the dressing. And the expected hit from chilli – although more restrained than the som tum salad you’d get in any decent Thai restaurant. But the chef has also used very European samphire to add saltiness and crunch. It’s really good.

Main courses were both from the day’s specials. One was a delicious offering of rabbit. There was the bunny’s back legs and a bit of loin. It can be very tricky to cook without it drying out but the chef had this absolutely nailed. There’s a little mashed potato, diced mushrooms and a couple of dabs of sauce. Across the table cod fillet. It’s perfectly cooked – ever so slightly underdone, so the flakes are still a tad translucent. The contribution to the “five a day” comes from asparagus, thinly shredded cabbage and mashed sweet potato. A butter and caper sauce brings it all together.

Even at this level of cooking, desserts can be the least interesting course. And so it was here. Nothing actually wrong with a crème brulee. But you sort of hope that they’ll have given it a cheffy twist. But, no, this is just a well made brulee. For the other dessert, a ring of chocolate ganache sat on a very thin pastry base. It’s good ganache, not overly sweet with the richness cut by a puddle of sharp passion fruit puree in the centre of the ring. Arty blobs of sauce decorate the plate but added little to the flavour. Decent desserts for sure, but just not as good as the savoury courses. Coffee was excellent as were the chocolate petit fours.

Service was excellent and they have an extensive range of wines by the glass. I don’t drink but my companion in life does. The sommelier brought three different bottles, at differing price points, to go with the first course, explaining each one, offering a taste and then pouring a glass of the chosen one. This was repeated, with different bottles, for the main course.

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Great report, John.