La Taberna de Mike Palmer
Miguel Palma starts his week making stocks out of whatever the kitchen has left, and the whole card is built backward from them.
Why go
Palma came out of the first generation of La Cónsula, the Costa del Sol hotel school, then cooked for Martín Berasategui and then for Manolo de la Osa at Las Rejas in Cuenca, which is the one he credits: All the base of stocks, broths, flavors comes from that house.
1 He describes the week: I start the week making stocks. I stew everything I get hold of, the trim, whatever we have.
A batch of ear stewed for one dish leaves a broth he works clean of fat until the collagen is all that is left, and that broth turns up under chickpeas with boletus, or under pochas with scallops.
He opened in May 2020, in an old warehouse beside the Club Hípico El Pinar at the foot of the Montes de Málaga. The room filled so fast that people ate sitting on the walls of the access road.1 He runs it with Elena Stoica, and the printed card has hardly moved since. Eight or ten suggestions change almost daily alongside it. It holds a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand again in the 2026 guide.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: the tortilla de patatas al whisky, first visit, no argument. Palma took it from an aperitivo at the Casablanca bar in Seville, it is made to order, and he calls it one of the hardest things on the card.1 Manolo Villanueva orders it too.4
- Order: the ensaladilla rusa. It is potato, egg, green bean and garlic, and Palma left everything else out on purpose.1
- Order: the callos a la madrileña, which come without chickpeas, or the paella made with couscous instead of rice, with grilled lobster and octopus and a socarrat under it.1
- Order: off the daily suggestions in autumn and winter. Those are the months Palma says he likes to work, because the stews come back.1
- Avoid: planning on a Sunday or a Monday. The room is shut both.7
What locals & experts say
- Miguel Palma, to Guía Repsol:
What is really modern is cooking an oxtail, or lentils that are a ten. People are surprised by the flavor.
1 - Mario Pino, chef-owner of La Gourmetería, in El Español (2024):
Sublime purity, any dish.
3 - The MICHELIN Guide, 2026 Bib Gourmand, reported by El Español: Palma cooks
a traditional cooking brought up to date, the kind that leaves its mark and stays in the memory.
2 - Miguel Palma, on why he cooks this way:
When everybody is going for the same thing, it is obvious you have to go somewhere else.
1
Good to know
- Booking: essential, and early for a weekend. Guía Repsol says the weekday tables go to colleagues and people doing business, and families take the weekends.1
- Closed: Sunday and Monday. Lunch runs Thursday to Saturday and dinner Tuesday to Saturday.7
- Where: Camino de los Almendrales, inside the Club Hípico El Pinar, in the pines on the edge of the Montes de Málaga natural park. It is a drive out of the centre.
- The wine list is the other reason to go. More than 400 references, 70 of them fortified and about 50 of those poured by the glass, with Japanese whisky beside them and Alhambra on draught. The Málaga growers on it are Huerto de la Condesa and Friedrich Schatz out of Ronda and Samuel Párraga in Coín.1
- The Asociación de Hosteleros de Málaga named it restaurant of the year in 2025.1
- Price: the Bib Gourmand is MICHELIN's mark for good value.
Verdict
should-visit — Miguel Palma starts his week making stocks out of whatever the kitchen has left, then builds the card around them, so the ear he stews for one dish becomes the broth under chickpeas and boletus for another. The tortilla de patatas al whisky is the dish to order first and it is made to order, which is why it takes time. After it, the ensaladilla rusa of potato, egg and green bean, the tripe served without chickpeas, or the paella built on couscous with grilled lobster. It holds a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand in the 2026 guide and the Málaga hoteliers named it restaurant of the year in 2025. The room sits in a riding club in the hills. It shuts Sunday and Monday and it needs booking.