Jon Clarke (Publisher & Editor)
MARBELLA’S Chambao chiringuito offers quality food just a stone’s throw from Puerto Banus.
It may only be a short stroll from Puerto Banus, yet Chambao is a million miles away in style.
You either arrive from the beach through a low key entrance, or better, mountain side via a dramatic natural cane arch, interwoven with bougainvillea.
Either way, you are transported to a slice of Belle Epoque Gran Cru Andaluz where seductive lighting combines with flower power, with the sea as the perfect backdrop.
But this is no chiringuito, Chambao has been created by the team behind the Puente Romano hotel. So this is a restaurant of significant standing in its own right, a place where the food should be the main protagonist.
And so it is, with a straightforward seafood slanted menu, featuring a range of dishes that you won’t try at many other places on the coast.
It actually bills itself as a ‘boutique beach and pool club’ and this it certainly is if you pop in during the day, when the venue promotes its pool and sunbeds.
It’s at night though, when the magic begins.
This starts with its waiters, who are well trained, bilingual and good natured, as you’d expect from an eaterie connected to a leading five-star hotel.
The menu is split into ‘starters to share’, which includes seafood soup, prawn pil pil and the interesting burratina and pickled tomatoes, ‘mains to share’ section, a ‘seafood’ section and a ‘Malaga fried fish’ section, which guarantees I’ll avoid it.
I don’t usually mention the bread, but a mini-loaf comes out warm, served with alioli and fat plump olives. It bodes well.
We go for a shared tuna tartare, which comes in an original fried rice base, spiced up with a thick kimchee sauce.
A separate sushi menu deserves a try, we are told by the maitre, Cristina Gallardo, from Cordoba. We dutifully plumb for a Kabuki roll with bluefin tuna, avocado and cucumber, which lends itself to a splendid pic, coming out as it does in a Far Eastern dragon boat.
For mains, I can’t resist trying the intriguing ‘Menorca-style’ lobster, which at €60 per person isn’t cheap, but is hardly extortionate for Marbella.
It is certainly one of the oddest dishes I’ve snaffled this year, though, coming out in a rich tomato and paprika sauce (called an ‘American sauce’) with a fried egg (yes fried egg!) on top.
But this is how they do it in Menorca, our waiter Ezekiel tells us, as he cracks open the claws and picks out the delicious crustacean goodness inside.
Served up with fried green peppers, thinly-cut dauphinoise potatoes, carrots and garlic and consome of fish and prawns, it is unusual but somehow works. Where lobster, I guess, becomes a meal rather than just a dish.
Out pops, head chef Sergio Zubiadut, from La Coruña, in Galicia, who is a long way from home, but tells us he is enjoying his time in Marbella.
He brings a ‘Tajin’ sorbet, which serves as a palate cleanser before we dip into a pudding, a cheesecake, which has a slice of classic Tom & Jerry cheese on the plate (but unless you’ve got a very sweet tooth beware of tasting it). It’s a great ending to a memorable meal.
Above all, remember this is the Golden Mile so it won’t suit all budgets.
