The Cheerful Chiringuito
Time passes slowly outside of the city in Andalucia. The summer sun hangs endlessly overhead and the bulls appear as leisurely and slow as the burros. Yet, on the coast you can pass the long days with surprising swiftness and ease at one of Spain’s little lauded guilty pleasures, the chiringuito.
The coast on the western end of Andalucia may now feel a bit too metropolitan and hurried for some, but you can still find sleepy and uncongested beaches dotted with chiringuitos all along the coast east of Malaga, from Rincon de la Victoria to Almuñecar and beyond. These little beach bars serve up the freshest of seafood and the coldest of beer in the most relaxed of atmospheres.
One thing you won’t find served up at these unpretentious watering holes, however, is attitude. It’s a ‘come as you are’ approach, where sardines and other fish fresh from the sea are roasted on cane sticks over open fires built in old beached fishing boats and served simply with salt, pepper and lemon. They’ll have shellfish you’ve probably never heard of, and the classic fritura Malagueña is not Spanish for fish and chips, but an assortment of fresh seafood delectably battered more thinly and lightly than tempura. If the summer heat has you rather less hungry than all that, no one minds if you just watch the tide change with a tinto de verano (summer red wine), similar to sangria except that the locals also actually drink it.
Of course, some chiringuitos are better than others (the smell of eternally recycled frying oil will tip you off to a bad one), but for the most part it’s usually a pretty safe gamble. I would avoid the roadside chiringuitos, however, where the prices are higher and the effort less genuine, and don’t go on a Monday if you want the freshest seafood; the fishermen never haul a catch on Sunday. If you’re not sure about the look or feel of one chiringuito, meander along the beach to the next one. There will be plenty of time under the slow Andalucian summer sun.
Alan Hazel owns and runs the fabulous finca Cortijo El Carligto in Andalucia and little takes place in the area that escapes his attention, or his knife and fork.
