El Mortero is a traditional restaurant in Icod de los Vinos, eight minutes up the hill from Playa de San Marcos. Our hosts recommend it in the same sentence as La Parada, for the same reason: it is where you go in Icod for real Canarian cooking rather than a tourist menu.
The name is the clue
A mortero is a mortar — the bowl you grind things in with a pestle. It is the traditional tool for making mojo, the pepper-and-garlic or coriander-and-garlic sauce that comes with almost every plate on these islands.
Naming a restaurant after it is a statement about what kind of kitchen it intends to be.
Eating the local way
Order to share. Canarian food arrives as a table of things rather than a course each: potatoes and mojo, fish, meat, cheese, bread. Take your time — this is a culture where the long weekend lunch is the main event of the week, and rushing it is the one clear mistake.
The wine list will lean local. Tenerife’s vines survived the phylloxera epidemic that wiped out most of Europe’s, so much of the island’s wine still grows on ungrafted roots in volcanic soil. Ask for something from the north.
Which of the two to choose
Honestly: whichever is open. Our hosts do not separate them, and on this coast the deciding factor is more often the door being unlocked than the menu.