Casa Chicha is a small restaurant on Playa de San Marcos, the black-sand bay below Icod de los Vinos. It serves Canarian fish and seafood, and on weekend afternoons it fills with local families doing the long Spanish lunch properly. It is a few minutes’ walk from our apartment.
What to expect
The cooking is coastal Canarian, which in practice means fish and shellfish handled simply. The seafood paella comes up again and again in local reviews as the thing to order, and it is the sort of dish built for a table of four rather than one person in a hurry.
If you have not eaten on the islands before, expect the standard Canarian accompaniments rather than mainland Spanish ones: papas arrugadas, the small salted wrinkled potatoes boiled in heavily salted water, and mojo — a garlic-and-pepper sauce that comes in a red version, usually warmer in flavour, and a green one made with coriander or parsley that goes with fish. Limpets, lapas, grilled on a hot plate under green mojo, are a local speciality worth trying if they appear.
Go at the weekend
The reason to single this place out is timing rather than any one dish. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons it becomes a village restaurant in the fullest sense — big tables, several courses, nobody in a rush, conversation loud enough that you can stop worrying about your Spanish.
That weekend lunch is the main meal of the week on this coast, and it is genuinely different in character from a midweek dinner. If you want one meal that feels like the place rather than like a holiday, this is the one to plan around. Book, and go hungry.
Practicalities
It is in the village on the seafront, so you can walk down from the apartment and back up afterwards without touching the car. As anywhere here, check the current hours on Maps before you set off — village restaurants close in the afternoon and shuffle their days between themselves, as we have explained separately.