Las Palmeras

Enrique Murillo's grandfather taught the espetero who still grills the sardines at Las Palmeras.

Why go

The espetero threads the sardines onto canes and cooks them over a fire built inside a wooden boat beached on the terrace. Every skewer on the menu comes off that fire.6 Enrique Murillo, who runs the room, said in 2025 that the espetero had been with them for twenty years. Murillo's grandfather taught the espetero the job.1 Nobody new can set the same thing up, Murillo says, because you need a trained espetero and you need the council to allow a fire on the sand: In the end they let us because it has always been here, but I think getting that kind of permit is very complicated.1

The fire came with the family. María and Bernardo ran a grocer's shop in La Malagueta and two stalls in El Palo's municipal market. In 1980 they opened this room on the Pedregalejo seafront.4 6 In 2020 their son wanted to let it go. His own son, Enrique Murillo, an engineer by training, took it on because he had grown up in the room: I have been here from morning to night. It is part of my family; I carry it inside me.1 His aunt runs the kitchen.1 Murillo calls what they cook marenga: Marengos were those men who spent the whole day at sea. That is the traditional cooking, the one that was done here, in the old days, on the beach. The cooking of our grandmothers, of our mothers.1

He has smartened the room up since, slowly: When I came in, we improved the quality of the product, the presentation, the cutlery, the glassware. We took away the paper tablecloths, we started putting on cloth ones. 'Changes, little by little,' my father told me. 'Make them, but make them slow, so people get used to it.'1 The Academia Gastronómica de Málaga then made it the province's best merendero or chiringuito in its 2024 prizes.7 The citation gives the kitchen as much credit as the fire.6

Order this / avoid

Order: the espeto de sardinas, sardines threaded on a cane and grilled over embers in the boat. It is the first thing to order and the thing the room is known for.4 5
Order: the espeto de salmonete. Red mullet goes on the same cane. Marta Sader of Condé Nast Traveler España called the result delicious in 2025.1
Order: the spoon dish of the day. It is the half of this kitchen people miss: monkfish soup on Tuesdays, gazpachuelo (the warm Málaga fish soup bound with mayonnaise) on Wednesdays, and the cazuela de fideos con pintarroja, a short-noodle casserole with catshark, on Thursdays only. They were 8 euros each in December 2024. Order one ahead at weekends.2 5
Order: conchas finas, the big smooth Venus clams of this bay, raw or al pil-pil in garlic and oil. The shellfish list also runs to Málaga coquinas (small wedge clams), sautéed clams, white prawn and the XXL búsanos from Marbella, a large sea snail Jaime de las Heras says you do not see just anywhere.8 5
Order: the arroz caldoso, the soupy rice, with lobster or with carabineros (the big scarlet deep-water prawn). It was 44 euros for two in December 2024, and 24 euros for the shellfish version.2
Drink: a bottle from one of the small growers on the list. José Manuel Rodríguez counted more than 250 wines on it in August 2025, Spanish and foreign. Ask what to drink with the espetos.4

What locals & experts say

Condé Nast Traveler España (2025): Marta Sader on the espeto: the flavor of memory, that perfect point of aroma of flame and sea, of crunch and tenderness: that flavor that holds inside it all the sun of summer. She ate there on a rough grey Thursday in April, among what she calls the regulars of a lifetime.1
Academia Gastronómica de Málaga (2024): the citation that came with the prize: We can taste not only excellent fish and shellfish, but also exquisite spoon dishes.6
Directo al Paladar (2025): Jaime de las Heras: If there is one place in Málaga to eat espetos as tradition demands, it is Las Palmeras.5
ELLE Gourmet (2025): José Manuel Rodríguez on what kind of room it has become: In truth, Las Palmeras is not a chiringuito in the usual sense; it is an evolution of this traditional kind of establishment so typical of our coasts. It is a step further, in everything.4
Málaga Hoy (2025): Murillo took his monkfish soup to the second national fish-soup championship at San Sebastián Gastronomika. The only prize went to La Pradera de Ruiseñada in Cantabria. He would not explain the one part that matters: Murillo tells us they make a fumet with the monkfish and then prepare a sofrito very characteristic of Las Palmeras about which he will give no clues.3
Guía Macarfi (read 2026): Well-executed espetos, clean fried fish and fresh shellfish mark out a recognisable menu, meant to be enjoyed without artifice.9
Award: Premio Antonio García del Valle, best merendero or chiringuito, Academia Gastronómica de Málaga, 2024.7

Good to know

Price: 30 to 40 euros a head in August 2025.4 The itemised figures on the menu of 28 December 2024 run from 8 euros for a spoon dish to 19 euros for octopus Galician-style, with desserts at 4 to 6.2
Booking: book online through the house's own page. Alba Rosado puts the reason plainly: On their site you can book online, something everyone who goes recommends doing to be sure of a good spot, since normally, and especially at holidays when a lot of people take time off, it is packed.2 10
Timing: it opens all year.4 The terrace runs well into October and after that the large indoor room takes over, with a warmer menu of shellfish soup and hot dishes.3
The fish: it changes every day with what the boats landed. The room buys at the lonjas.2 10
Outside: the Pedregalejo seafront is being rebuilt, a 5.7 million euro job that El Español says runs to the end of 2026.11 The quarter's operators describe dust, power cuts and terraces taken down.12 Call 952 29 73 79 and ask whether the terrace is trading before you plan lunch on the sand.
Where: Paseo Marítimo El Pedregal 97, in Pedregalejo, on the eastern side of the city. The phone is 952 29 73 79.8 4

Verdict

should-visit — The sardines are grilled on canes in a beached wooden boat on the sand, by an espetero who has been doing it here for twenty years. María and Bernardo opened the room in 1980 and their grandson Enrique Murillo has run it since 2020, and the cooking that won the Academia Gastronómica's 2024 prize is as much the spoon food as the fire: monkfish soup on Tuesdays, gazpachuelo on Wednesdays, eight euros each in December 2024. Thirty to forty euros a head in August 2025, open all year, and book, because it fills.