Mercado Central de Atarazanas
Paco Murillo fries boquerones at a standing counter inside the Mercado Central de Atarazanas, and they won the city's fritura contest in 2025.
Why go
Murillo buys his fish from the stalls around him and cooks it fried, on the plancha or boiled, which is the whole method at El Yerno.4 The card moves with the season and the suggestions change daily: boquerones, gambas, quisquillas, calamares, salmonetes, calamaritos, langoustines, cuts of bluefin, chopped tomato.4 The wine list behind him runs to generosos and Málaga bottles.4
The building is a fourteenth-century Nasrid shipyard that the sea used to reach.2 After 1487 it served as a convent, a warehouse, a barracks and a military hospital, and the city pulled it down from 1870.2 Joaquín de Rucoba put up the iron-and-glass market that stands there between 1876 and 1879, and he rebuilt the shipyard's white marble horseshoe arch into the front of it.2 The stained glass at the far end, 108 panes of the Alcazaba, the cathedral and the port, went in in 1973.2
The stalls sell fish and shellfish off several grounds, meat, charcuterie and cheese by denomination, seasonal fruit, local spices and pickles, and bread.1 The fruit is the thing to carry out: custard apples from the Costa Tropical and strawberries from the Guadalhorce Valley, with pata negra from Ronda on the ham counters.3
Order this / avoid
- Order: the boquerones fried at El Yerno. They took the Academia Gastronómica de Málaga's prize for the best fried anchovies in 2025.4
- Order: the concha fina, the giant clam Málaga eats raw, and the salmonetes and calamaritos after it.4
- Order: a glass of generoso or a Málaga white to go with the fried fish.4
- Order: a wrap of pil pil prawns at Uvedoble's counter here, and the dark vermouth at the Almacén del Indiano.3
- Avoid: planning an afternoon around it. The market trades in the morning and the doors do not open on Sunday.1
What locals & experts say
- 7 Caníbales: El Yerno is
the seafood counter of the Mercado Central, which under Paco Murillo has established itself as a temple of product, the sea's and the liquid kind alike, with a spectacular cellar.
5 - Ignacio Luque, Academia Gastronómica de Málaga:
If you do not mind eating standing up, in the Mercado de Atarazanas you have everything and it is very interesting. El Yerno is the one that takes the most care over the produce, and in Atarazanas you have great variety and a great atmosphere.
6 - Vida Económica (2023): El Yerno is
a perfect place, and the crowd is mostly local, for informal picking that can easily turn into lunch on the back of tempting raciones, classic and very Malagueñan.
7
Good to know
- Timing: mornings, Monday to Saturday. The doors are shut on Sunday.1
- Booking: none. You walk in and find a place at a counter.4
- Where: Calle Atarazanas 10, a block in from the Alameda Principal. El Yerno is stall 185.4
- The building is listed. It has been a Bien de Interés Cultural since 1979.2
Verdict
should-visit — Come hungry to stall 185. Paco Murillo's fried boquerones won the city's fritura contest in 2025. Have them with concha fina off the ice and a glass of generoso, standing up. The building around it was a Nasrid shipyard, and the white marble horseshoe arch in the front wall is the original door, rebuilt into Joaquín de Rucoba's iron market of 1879. Buy custard apples from the Costa Tropical and Ronda pata negra on the way out. Come in the morning, because the doors shut at midday and all day Sunday.