What does a young Swedish couple, with many years’ experience of the restaurant business, do when they get tired of the cold North?

This young couple moved to Marbella, on Spain’s Costa del Sol, and found the perfect spot to realize their dream. The dream they had was to create a small but special restaurant, where people could meet in a friendly bar and restaurant, and be tempted to try their food.

The dream became a reality on 18th March 2000, and it is called
El Gusto Bar & Kitchen

When you visit El Gusto and are served your dinner by friendly and professional staff, you realize that, in these beautiful though simple surroundings, it is all about food. You feel it in the air, you smell it and you taste it; and you can hear it being discussed among the other guests in the restaurant. When you ask, the chef himself comes to your table and proves it.

Yes, it’s all about food, he says. It’s also about a certain passion for daily searches at the market for the best groceries; for establishing good connections with suppliers, who will go that extra length to find that little extra detail you wish to serve the guests. We create good quality food, richly flavoured with herbs and spices. Sometimes we present a classic dish that everyone can recognize, and sometimes we do dishes that wed Indian with French, or why not Swedish and Thai?

We are always researching and planning for the next menu, as we do a complete change of menu every three months.

The ingredients that make a successful kitchen are many, and you can do it in so many different ways. In our case we choose to do it with our hearts…, which means that the secret lies in the home-cooking, in the appetizing presentations, and that everything on the plate, including the decoration, should be edible.

If you can’t do it well, don’t do it at all.

You will find that there is a reason behind the restaurant being relatively small, with only 35 seats. We wish our guests to feel that they are actually visiting us. The small cosy restaurant, with not so many seats, gives them the possibility of dining by themselves in private, or in the company of friends, with us always around to attend to their needs. The feeling of ‘living-room-in-a-private-home’ makes everyone feel special, and you see that people relax when they are not surrounded by too much stiffness and formality. The personal greeting when people come to visit us, the personal touch in every detail, the affordable prices and the concern we feel for our small restaurant – all together it makes people come back to us. We believe that if you do something really well, with your heart behind it, people will notice and appreciate it.

This is what El Gusto is all about.

Lotta and Daniel welcome you.

Hotels in Spain near El Gusto:                                       Useful Area Guides:

Marbella Hotels / Puerto Banus Hotels                          Puerto Banus / Marbella /  Malaga