The Many Flavors Of Tenerife

Many visitors to Tenerife, as with the other big destinations in Spain’s Canary Islands, end up sunbathing at all-inclusive resorts or staying at one of the five-star hotel tours that line the island’s southwestern beaches. But that only scratches the surface of an island with varied geography, rich history, excellent wines and an increasingly interesting, multinational gastronomy.

Take, for example, chef Lucas Maes. Born in Tenerife to Belgian parents, he grew up on the island before starting seriously on his culinary career, first in a Michelin two-star in Belgium and then at a three-star in Paris. When he returned to Tenerife, he set out to bring that technique, along with Asian influences from his studies and travels, to local products. (It’s worth noting that he leaves cream out of his kitchens, preferring reductions of other ingredients for flavor without the richness.)

He currently has four restaurants all over the island, with the most well-known and most fine-dining-y in the southern resort areas. The first in his current portfolio, Sucás, offers “short” (8 courses) and “long” (12) tasting menus in a colorful dining room on the highly exclusive Costa Adeje. Next was Restaurante Aqua, with similarly intricate menus overlooking the ocean in a four-star all-inclusive in Los Gigantes.

But he and his backers also understand that there’s far more to the island than big resorts and super-luxe hotels. His most interesting projects are far from the tourist epicenter. The quality is no less high, but the vibe is more relaxed, and the off-the-beaten-track locations add to the appeal.

At Zumaque, on the north side of the island in Puerto de la Cruz, he’s experimenting with Asian flavors. “I don’t want to do sushi,” he told me as I sat down to a lunch of kimchi-and-salmon-sashimi croquettes, prawn ceviche with sweet corn, dumplings with ginger sauce and kimchi mayo, tempura shrimp lettuce wraps and soft-shell crab bao. “I make fusion. I like to combine European ingredients with Asian style. I’m looking for dishes that are not boring—that are spicy, sour and sweet instead.”

His latest project, Xarko, is more focused on Canarian traditions—albeit with the technique of a top chef trained in northern Europe. The restaurant takes its name from a local word that means something like “tide pool.” The unpretentious menu includes classic island fare like escaldón, a dish based on toasted corn and chickpeas that has its origins in the time when Berbers lived on the island, some 600 years ago. Other plates are lighter, such as the zingy green bean salad with apple, mushrooms and walnut vinaigrette, and the well-cooked fish of the day.

Xarko occupies a place in the Casa del Vino, a 17th-century hacienda that’s been reimagined to spotlight the history of Canarian wines, with a tasting room, small museum and event spaces. Because the house is government property, a competition was held to see who would get the concession. Maes “won by a landslide,” said his PR agent.

The house is a good place to learn about the history of the islands’ wine, which, as several people around the island told me, was served to George Washington, present at the signing of important documents around the world and mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare. They were some of the most traded wines in the world in the 18th century, and are said to have helped finance the American War of Independence.

In a sense, the wines are historic—the island was never blighted by phylloxera, so the island is full of old vines and varieties that were wiped out elsewhere—but it’s not just a thing to be enjoyed in a museum. Unlike in nearby Madeira, where winemakers doubled down on fortified wines, the winemaking in the Canaries has continued to evolve, with table wines made in a variety of styles from a variety of grapes.

Winemakers are taking all sorts of approaches to wine and wine tourism. Envinate is a garage winery founded by four friends who studied winemaking together, whose low-intervention bottles have found a cult following all over the world. Cofounder Roberto Santana says that the wines, which are produced in vineyards with different terroirs around the island, all share “personality from the microbiology, character from the conditions of each year, and soul, which is added by the people working in the vineyards and cellars.” (Although tastings are not open to the public, it’s worth seeking out the wines in a shop or restaurant.)

On the other end of the spectrum, at Bodegas Monje, fifth-generation winemaker Felipe Monje has created a pretty tasting room, large restaurant with cooking demonstrations and an (unsurprisingly) popular tasting series called Wine & Sex (though wine and sensuality would be more accurate). His property also benefits from a picture-perfect view of Mount Teide, the volcano that is the highest point in Spain and in the Atlantic Islands.

The mountain brings me back to the pleasures of the north. (You can climb it, but I didn’t.) The UNESCO-protected San Cristobál de la Laguna is easily the prettiest city on the island. Elsewhere, nature still shines, and life is slower. (Islanders complain that it’s also colder, but everything is relative.) There are lovely, small-scale places to stay like the cottages at the family-owned Finca el Patio de Tita, a working farm that produces avocado and citrus fruits. It also raises chickens, which eat the fruits that can’t be sold—which might explain the tastiness of the eggs in the breakfast baskets delivered each morning.

The manager—the niece of the namesake aunt who once managed the farm—told me that the delicious fresh bread came from the bakery around the corner, a vestige of the time when this part of the island had many French settlers. She reminded me again of the different influences brought by the Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French kingdoms that shaped the island, and how they’ve created a culture, gastronomic and otherwise, that adds up to more than the sum of its parts.