[Tenerife] Playa de las Americas - summary of 2026 eats

Regional Dining Discussions Italy, Spain, Portugal
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We’re just back from our usual three week “fly and flop” holiday to the island. We ate out every night, together with some lunches and breakfasts. All meals were round the tourist area. Nothing exciting, so I’m not posting reviews here (although if youre really interested, I have posted to Tripadvisor). But here’s a summary of where we ate.

Taurus 2 – former steakhouse. Now gone down market

Meson Las Lanzas – proper Spanish restaurant, with some of the best food of the holiday.

Picasso - touristy Italian on the ocean side paseo.

Comptoir de Damien – good combo of classic and modern French food

Soul Kitchen – breakfasts. Acqi bowls and the like

Bank – Attempt to replicate a New York steakhouse. Decent food. Shit service

Shin Yori - We enjoyed this Korean place. With little knowledge of the cuisine, I don’t know how good it is.

Pasta y Vino – Tutta bene

Meat – touristy reincarnation of the previous “Meat, Flavour, Farmer”. Food is OK – view of the Atlantic is great.

Dedos – part of the Venture Restaurants group. Award winning burgers

Balkonen – long standing favourite Lebanese place

Mrs Myagi’s – Another Venture Restaurants place. Very disappointing East Asian food – dumbed down for the North European masses.

La Marina – Italian. A “find”

Meson Castellano – long standing favourite. Straightforward Spanish take on food

Friends – decent offerings from a standard tourist menu.

Gula – a bit different, a bit up market

Siya – another “find”. Fusiony South Asian food. Chef is East European.

Cafe del Parque – brunch

Rincon del Pescador – Wasnt the seafood restaurant we thought the name implied. Booked well in advance – got the worst table in the place.

Rincon del Arroz – top notch paella and other rice dishes

La Barca – Touristy but a cut above many. We had Xmas Day lunch here a year or so back and it’s become a regular haunt

Tinge of Turmeric – Tenerife take on the British high street curry house. Was OK

Garibaldi – Fine dining restaurant let down by completely shit service.

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John do you have an idea of which island has the best food? I’ve been only to Lanzarote. I’d like to try another island, but am dissuaded by the lack of great food, on every of the islands that I looked into… Lanzarote really captured us both, but we found that we had to drive a fair way to find the best places to eat. I wanted food that at least had some relevance to the islands, so not Indian or Italian… Sometimes I look at the TripAdvisor forums for Canarias, but they seem to be focused more on where to buy cheap beer than on finding interesting places to eat.

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Can’t help I’m afraid, Erica. Apart from one trip to Gran Canaria, all of our holidays have been to the southern resort areas on Tenerife, so I can’t make comparisions.

My guess is that Tenerife may well be the best place for food, simply because its the biggest island, so a greater customer base.

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@erica1,
I too was greatly impressed by the level of cuisine on Lanzarote. And a major reason why we visited was to attend the Saborea Lanzarote gastronomic festival (now held every other year and not this year). Major Michelin-starred chefs from the mainland attended (Jordi Roca, Casa Marcial, Bardal, Mina, Disfrutar, D Stage, Cenador de Amos) & gave cooking demonstrations. Lanzarote has definitely become a food lover’s (and to a lesser extent, a wine lover’s) destination.

We dined at many of the spots that you chose (I remember that back-and-forth list here on your planning thread). We enjoyed them all—César Lanzarote, Palacio de Ico, El Risco, Kamezí, SeBe…

@Harters,
But I also agree with you, Harters. I think that overall, given the number of recommended, starred or “sunned” or “soletes” restaurants in the Repsol and Michelin guides, Tenerife perhaps has the slight edge, especially when it comes to wine production.

At Madrid Fusion, I attended a chat and tasting by Robert Parker’s Spain/Portugal wine critic, Luis Gutiérrez on the history and characteristics of Tenerife wines, tasting wines from all the several D.O.s and was impressed.
And my favorite professional gastro critic visits the island often and praises its diverse cuisine. His blog article: “Tenerife, a Gastronomic Island”. Tenerife also holds a gastronomic forum, “Encuentro de los Mares” in June.
So, we’ve decided to make the northeast part of the island our next visit for a gastro/wine exploration, basing in the former capital, World Heritage Site, San Cristóbal de La Laguna.

That said, tiny El Hierro also holds appeal. Too many islands, too little time!

I’ve already visited Gran Canaria but too long ago—just attended a cooking demo/tasting by Michelin-starred, Repsol-sunned Muxgo of the Royal Hideaway).

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I´ve been reading about the “Guachinches” since a friend from our dining club came back from Tenerife having explored some. T
hey may be similar to the Galician furanchos, I believe they’re a “cousin”, informal places housed in homes or garages that sell their young wines accompanied by typical Canarian dishes or “home cooking/comida casera”. On Gran Canaria they’re called “bochinches”.

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Yeah, the guachinches are very rough and ready, so I’m told. You need to be in the know about where and when as they are not permanent restaurants. Tend to be in the north if the island and often linked to wine producing areas.

Places which serve traditional Canarian food in the tourist areas have not been successful. I know of a couple that have only lasted a couple of years. I presume Canarian food is not what many North European folk want to eat.

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Yes, I’ve spent the afternoon doing research! :grinning_face:
They can only be open, I believe, 3 months a year, (much like the Galician furanchos, their cousins) and most are in the north, in the wine producing areas, as they can only serve their own wine.