Ristta serves Thai food in Puerto de la Cruz, twenty-five minutes east of the apartment. It is one of the few recommendations in the Welcome Book where our hosts drop the measured tone entirely — “nothing short of amazing” is not how they describe most places.
Why it stands out
Good Thai cooking is genuinely scarce on this island. Tenerife’s international restaurants skew Italian, Indian and generically Mediterranean; a kitchen doing Thai properly is unusual enough that people drive for it.
The other half of the recommendation is the staff, which our hosts mention specifically. On a coast where the warmth of the welcome is often the difference between a good meal and a memorable one, that is worth knowing.
When to use it
This is the mid-stay reset. After several days of grilled fish, papas arrugadas and mojo — all excellent, all similar — an evening of something with lemongrass and chilli in it resets the palate for the rest of the week.
Puerto de la Cruz makes a good evening around it: the murals in the old town beforehand if it is still light, dinner, and the drive back along the coast.
Practicalities
Twenty-five minutes each way. Park in a town car park rather than the old streets. Book at weekends, and check the hours as always.
Puerto de la Cruz and why it has this at all
It is a fair question why a town of thirty thousand on a quiet coast has Thai, Indian, Lebanese and a Michelin star within walking distance of each other.
The answer is that Puerto de la Cruz has been receiving visitors since the nineteenth century — long before the southern resorts were built — and a good number of them stayed. That produced a settled international population rather than a seasonal one, and settled populations want food from home, cooked properly, all year.
The southern resorts have more restaurants. This town has more variety per head, and it has had it for a century.
Practicalities
Twenty-five minutes each way from the apartment along the north coast road. Park in one of the town car parks and walk in — the old streets are narrow and mostly not worth attempting in a hire car.