Jon Clarke (Publisher & Editor)
I’M luxuriating in a Jacuzzi on my own private terrace as a dozen snow cannons go full tilt preparing the Sierra Nevada’s famous Rio run.
While the sun is high in the sky, it’s a crisp two degrees outside and there’s more steam coming from my bath than from my breath.
Welcome to one of Andalucia’s most luxurious hotels, El Lodge, where the country’s captains of industry, celebrities and wealthiest expats come to relax (and maybe ski, if the mood takes them).
The truth is why would you want to head out into the cold once you’ve checked into this uber-stylish retreat.
With just 21 rooms, you can almost guarantee peace and quiet within its wooden walls that have put up the current and former kings of Spain, no less.
Being both hip and sumptuous in equal measures, its seductive lighting cleverly picks out key features, be they vintage furniture or animal print throws.
All put together by designer Andrew Martin, the rooms exude comfort with their warm, neutral tones and high-end amenities (smart entertainment systems, coffee machines etc) and products.
Each has wonderful views past pines up to the snowy peaks and main ski lift of the resort, while the tech even stretches to heated loo seats and a push button bidet.
While the breakfast for kings (appropriately with amazing Eggs Royale), spa and outdoor heated pool is the sort of thing you’d expect from a leading hotel of the world, for me, the Lodge is at its best on a sunny afternoon eating lunch on its terrace.
This really is truly a front row seat to the cream of the Sierra Nevada. And not just the creamy, white powdery stuff that usually arrives in a deluge just before Christmas. This is very much where the beautiful people can be found clinking champagne glasses around the festive season or Semana Santa.
The scenic slope-side terrace is impossible to beat with the steep Aguila run sloping in from the left and the celebrated Rio run down to the right.
With the funky sounds provided by a DJ, you’ll hear a dozen or more languages from guests enjoying lunch, while many will inevitably be up singing and dancing as the sun starts to set.
Above all, though, the food is really good, and even better inside the hotel come dinner time.
For lunch the menu is simple and attractive to peruse with its black and white pics and a good mix of light bites, healthy options and classics.
All put together by Executive Chef Juan Martin, there is a new ‘tempting’ section that includes such delights as the ‘crunchy king prawn brioche’ or the Wagyu ‘Pepito’ sandwich with raclette cheese, padrón peppers and Chipotle mayonnaise.
I’m guided though to try the Swiss fondue, which isn’t really on my radar, but turns out to be an interesting dish, a two-man operation and involving a bunsen burner being lit at the table and two plates loaded up with a huge mix of things to dip into a pot of creamy Gruyere cheese.
There’s bread and tomatoes, among a sea of ham, bresaola and new potatoes, while some thinly sliced mushrooms and red peppers also make the cut.
It’s not really my bag and I’m much happier with the leek soup, although how can they call this amazing mixture a ‘soup’, coming as it does with olive oil, caviar and leeks cooked in three different ways.
It’s creamy and delicious, but somehow trumped by the amazing oven-baked turbot, that was one of the specials of the day.
Cooked by young chef Samuel – who I met when he cooked a similar dish at the group’s sister restaurant El Mirlo, near Tarifa, this summer – here it comes diced up and more elaborated with braised artichokes, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and parsley. And, best of all, with extra sauce, creamy and full of sliced prawns.
Samuel, from Jerez, along with restaurant manager Pedro Garcia, have been seconded up to the mountains for the season, while my other waitress Naty has been recruited from Ibiza.
They make a friendly, capable trio, but like all the staff at the Lodge have the uncanny ability to be knowledgeable, polite and personable at the same time.
Unsurprisingly Pedro, who grew up in nearby Granada, guides me to a local pudding, the ‘piononos’, which herald from Santa Fe where the Moors finally capitulated in 1492. They look like toadstools but are delicious coming with hazelnut cream and mixed fruits.
Marvellous Maribel
For dinner I’m heading to El Lodge’s next door sister hotel Maribel.
And what a joyous space the team from Marbella Club/Puente Romano hotel have created here.
Aside from the charming hotel itself, with its 29 well appointed Alpine rooms, the dining room is simply breathtaking.
Billing itself as a ‘gastronomic club’, it is a wonderful wide open space with acres of glass offering the most amazing views and a true sense of escape.
Its focus (apart from the views) are the elegant bar at one end and the giant scene setting circular lights, which are tempered depending on the time of day.
The mature pines outside are beautifully lit at night and everything is dressed up for the festive season, with pillars entirely swathed in fir, holly and pine cones.
This is much more of a stand alone restaurant, encouraging diners in from the outside, and the dinner menu is impressive for its long mix of a dozen starters, including oysters and nearby Motril shrimp croquettes.
Argentine waiter/sommelier Ricardo takes me through my paces… And he knows having worked with Ramon Freixa in Madrid and Martin Beresategui in San Sebastian.
He’s just done a season in Formentera and is loving his sojourn on the slopes, he tells me, in particular as the quality expected at his new hotel is ‘second to none’. He quickly proves this with a wonderful chardonnay by the glass from Pago de Circus Finca Bolandin 2022, while we debate the pink tomato salad with smoked sardines or the carabinero prawn linguine, as a starter.
The decision is quickly taken out of our hands when all of a sudden head chef Juan Martin lands at the table. I’ve met him various times and with his three decades working for the group (11 years of them up here in the mountains) will clearly know what is best to eat.
“The world has really changed for chefs nowadays with so many vegetarians, vegans and allergies,” he explains. “We have to almost each dish off by heart and where all the ingredients herald from.”
I could talk to him til the cows come home but then I’d never get my truffled steak tartare on brioche, which Hallelujah, is a true bite of heaven!
Next up are the magisterial pink tomatoes from Almería with a kind of mincemeat of sardines in the middle and a Pippara-spice gazpacho poured on top. Both beautiful to look at and healthy!
A new dish is the ‘Josper-roasted leeks’ which are first lightly boiled and then finished in the Josper oven. Some foie and Brie goats cheese is added on top adding a melt-in-the-mouth element, while at the base is a bravas sauce with cana honey from nearby Frigiliana.
Possibly even better is a lightly fried artichoke flower which came with pine nuts and some foie cooked in fino from Jerez… oh and with ‘some burrata and edible leaves from Japan’, to boot.
I feared it might knock me off my perch, but it turned out to be surprisingly light and flavoursome with a flyaway crispiness. Bring on the main course of wild seabass cooked in a Bilbaino sauce of garlic, parsley and tiny shrimps. Juan was clearly on fire.
Somehow I managed to pack away a Mille-feuille pudding with chestnut cream and chocolate, washed down with a wonderful Pedro Ximenez from award-winning Montilla Moriles vineyard Toro Albala, near Cordoba.
I didn’t just need to just go off skiing to burn it off. I needed to do some cross-country skiing, with my wife on my back.
Visit.www.ellodge.com or www.maribels.com
