Le Delizie del Porto: for us, the best restaurant on Lanzarote — and here is why

Lanzarote has a Michelin star and five Repsol Suns. That said — and knowing some readers will bristle — if we had to pick a single place to eat on this island tomorrow, we would go to Le Delizie del Porto, on the marina at Puerto Calero.

It is not a restaurant that performs. It is a restaurant that does not get a dish wrong, and the difference between those two things becomes clear the second time you go back. The pasta is rolled by hand every day, and you can taste it: it holds its cooking, it holds the sauce, it has a bite that bought sheets will never have. It is the hardest thing to get right far from Italy, and it is exactly where this kitchen refuses to compromise.

Who is behind it

The restaurant is run by two men from Umbria, and you can see it in how they handle ingredients: no fireworks, good produce, a steady hand. This is traditional cooking reread with intelligence, not a parody with a tricolour on the sign.

What to order

The seafood tagliatelle with carabineros, the red prawn of these waters, used here for flavour rather than show. The honeyed suckling pork, which those who have tried it describe as the best pork of their lives. To start, burrata and Ibérico ham, rice supplì, fried meatballs with paprika mayonnaise, tomato bruschetta. To finish, zabaglione — which almost nobody makes any more — or the pear crumble.

If you have coeliac disease or other intolerances, say so: they do not brush it aside, they work around it.

Where you eat

The tables look out over Puerto Calero, one of the loveliest marinas in the Canaries: still boats, no traffic, the light falling on the water. In the evening, with the mast lights on, the view is worth half the bill.

Good to know

Plaza del Arte 14B, Puerto Calero marina (Yaiza). Phone +34 669 77 89 38. Open Tuesday to Sunday, noon to 10pm; closed Monday. Average spend around €32. There are few tables and word is spreading: book ahead, especially for dinner and at weekends.