Base 9

Pablo Zamudio and Cristian Fernández wrote a restaurant as their final-year college project in 2018, and Base 9 is that project, cooked out of ten square meters with four burners, an oven and a griddle.

Why go

They opened the room on 24 November 2022 in El Perchel, a few steps from the Alameda Principal, with seats for 42.1 4 The name means the base: the fondos, caldos and sofritos (stocks, broths and slow-fried aromatics) that every dish starts from.4 Cristian Fernández traces it to a work placement with Dani García: there we served the menu based on The Little Prince, where it says that what is essential is invisible to the eye. That is what we look for here in the broths, the stocks, the reductions. The base of every dish takes many hours. And I think you can tell.1

The reason to go is the value, and the guides have caught up with it. The Michelin guide made it a Bib Gourmand for the first time in its 2026 edition, one of two new ones in the province.2 Guía Repsol recommends it and describes what they do as a grandmother's cooking adapted to the twenty-first century.5 Pablo Zamudio set the price line himself: There is no need to go mad, or for an omelette to cost 18 euros. We reach people who maybe cannot go to other places to eat.1

They went to Orlando for the opening of José Andrés's Jaleo and did more than a thousand covers a service.1 3 They told El País what that was like: One day you might make 20 kilos of croquetas. They came home when the visa ran out.1 Zamudio had come to cooking through a course the Andalusian employment service offered him while he was out of work in 2011: It hooked me. And suddenly I did want to learn.1 Fernández now leads the kitchen and Zamudio the room.1

Order this / avoid

Order: the canelón de gallina, on the menu since the first day. El País called it one of those dishes where you feel the patience in the cooking. It is made from a stew with many hours of fire and a touch of pancetta to give it unctuousness. It was 8 euros in November 2024.1 Guía Repsol says the bird is old hen.5
Order: the tortilla de patatas, 9 euros in November 2024 and never off the menu. It is built off the Japanese omurice, made with eggs from Cobardes y Gallinas and served with wasabi mayonnaise.1
Order: the alboronía, the Andalusian relative of pisto, with a very concentrated house tomato sauce, pumpkin foam and a low-temperature egg.1
Drink: the malagueño bottles, among them the Resiliencia white from Gonzalo Beltrán and the Ancestral from Samuel Párraga.1
Avoid: arriving on the old prices. Every figure here was printed in November 2024 and the Bib Gourmand landed a year later, so expect the bill to have moved.

What locals & experts say

7 Caníbales (2025): Esperanza Peláez on the two of them: they have shown two things: one, that you can recover your grandmother's flavours while cooking even better than she did, and two, that it is possible to give outstanding cooking at affordable prices.3
El País (2024): Nacho Sánchez, on what that kitchen is doing all day: There is always a pot on the fire, a sofrito under way, a stew being left to bubble with patience.1
Guía Macarfi (read 2026): Magnificent stews, made with lots of time and patience... Short menu and very competitive prices.7
Cooks who send people here: El País reports that Dani Carnero, Jaime Tejedor of El Alimentario and Álvaro Salido of Alita Soho all name this room when they are asked where to eat.1
Award: Michelin Bib Gourmand, new in the 2026 guide, reported by El Español.2
Award: recommended by Guía Repsol in the 2025 Soles edition, without a Sol.6

Good to know

Price: 25 to 35 euros a head in November 2024, over about twelve dishes and two desserts that move with the season.1 Guía Macarfi puts it at 25 euros without drinks.7
Timing: shut Monday and Tuesday, with a lunch and a dinner service the rest of the week, as El País printed them in November 2024.1
Booking: the house takes its own bookings on 622 54 64 37. Forty-two seats and a Bib make that a call worth making early.5 1
Where: Calle Salitre 9, fifteen minutes from the historic center and ten from the María Zambrano station.1
Also: the kitchen cooks vegan dishes, and it has two windows you can watch the work through.5 1

Verdict

should-visit — Pablo Zamudio and Cristian Fernández cook out of ten square meters with four burners, an oven and a griddle, and everything on the card starts from a stock that took most of a day. The hen cannelloni has been on since the first service and was 8 euros in November 2024, when the whole meal ran 25 to 35 euros a head. MICHELIN gave it a Bib Gourmand a year after that, so take the figures as a floor. Shut Monday and Tuesday, forty-two seats, so call.