I don’t know why we haven’t been to Restaurante el Risco before, but we’ll be returning! We joined some friends for Sunday lunch, who are regulars at the restaurant, after they had told us it was their favourite in Famara.
It has an unprepossessing frontage, on the sandy, “back road” in Famara, and unfortunately the terrace, which used to lead straight onto the ocean has been closed because of a dispute around rights of way. But the restaurant itself is an oasis of air conditioned calm, with crisp decor and plenty of uniformed staff. One wall consists of several picture windows, giving a fabulous view of Famara Beach and the cliffs.
The menu is at Restaurante el Risco is not large, and the emphasis is on fresh, local seafood, but everything has an interesting twist – it’s not your standard Lanzarote fayre. The waiter explains the days specials – basically whatever has been caught that morning.
While our wine was poured (we went for the Yaiza in the blue bottle) freshly baked bread arrived, including a fabulous yellow anise bread, and a small complimentary taster of ceviche was given to each of us. We elected to go for four tapas to share. Normally, when you go that way, all four dishes arrive at once, and it’s a bit of a scramble around the table. But in this case, they brought one dish out at a time, which is much more civilised.
We went for Grilled goat’s cheese, served with a green mojo, a mixed dish of seafood – Mussels, cockles etc, fried calamari with a fabulous smoky flavour and fried moray eel. All were delicious but the stand out was the eel – the thinnest slivers dredged in a light batter and fried, served with banana chips -the best I’ve ever had.
For mains, two of us went for Langostinos Salvajes – prawns served in a delicious, fresh avocado and tomato tower. Another elected to go for a special of the day, a white fish ceviche and the final member of the party went for a fresh tuna tartar. I tried each, and the fish wasn’t just super fresh, the balance of flavours was fabulous.
We were there for two hours and enjoyed two bottles of wine, desserts and coffees, so the spend per head was around €50, but you could easily have a starter and main there and halve that cost.
My advice is to book, particularly on a Sunday, as there was a queue waiting for tables most of the time we were there.
Restaurante el Risco is on Calle Montaña Clara in Famara and their phone number is 928 52 85 50.
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