At last…there is a guachinche in Los Cristianos. In all honesty, and I hope that the owners don’t take offence, but it’s not a 100% true guachinche.
I’ll explain, a guachinche was originally a room within a house that served food to accompany the wine that had been grown by the vineyard. The general rule was that once the wine that had been reserved for sale through the guachinche as opposed for sale to wholesalers, vendors, bars and restaurants had been finished, the serving of food was also stopped.
As most wine was grown in the north of Tenerife, the number of guachinches grew and grew and today there are plenty to choose from, although over the years owners have continued to serve food even when their wine reserves have finished. In fact many guachinches have been running illegally for quite some time and recently laws have been put in place which will make them more like restaurants than the original idea of having a room set aside for the serving of food.
In my opinion, the idea of guachinches is brilliant, excellent wine served with equally excellent food and that is exactly what my wife and I found at the recently opened Guachinche Los Cristianos. Situated in one of the back streets of Los Cristianos, Calle La Paloma, the owner told us that the house red wine is from La Victoria in the north and the house white is from the Reveron vineyard up near Vilaflor and maybe equally important, the staff come from the north too.
Generally speaking the food in a guachinche is more to do with the basics of meat, fish, potatoes and vegetables. Here, we found that the dishes seemed to be based on traditional dishes found in the guachinches, but with a twist as you can see below. The dish below is fish, gofio, peppers, onions and sauce but as you can see served with a modern twist. My wife, being Canarian, was very excited to see that Banana Croquetas were on the menu, something that I, as an Englishman have been putting off eating ever since I met her…warm bananas do nothing for me at all. Well, now I know what I have been missing all of these years…no banana-ery taste, which is what I had been fearing.
So, overall, I can highly recommend the restaurant, we’ll certainly be going back with family and friends. They have a Facebook page, so you can look that up and their phone number is 922 79 44 89 and maybe we’ll see you in there the next time we go.
