Ikarus, the Canarian house with a garden in the heart of La Villa de Teguise

La Villa de Teguise is the island's old capital, and it shows: stone streets, low houses with dark doorways, a quiet that six days out of seven you will not find anywhere else on Lanzarote. On Plaza Clavijo y Fajardo, inside one of those mansions, is Ikarus.

The place

It is a traditional Canarian house, a large one, with its garden behind. Which means you eat either in the rooms of the house or outside in the shade, and on a windy day — that is, most days — you are fine either way. This is not a passing-trade place built for coaches: it is a building that was there first and that somebody decided to use well.

What you eat

The menu holds two things at once: a base of tapas and a list of sugerencias, the day's specials, which is where the kitchen's hand shows. Among the dishes that come up most often from people who have been:

• tuna carpaccio
• prawn risotto
• huevos estrellados con ibérico — eggs broken over potatoes with ham
• goat's cheese salad with rocket and honey vinaigrette
• solomillo con foie
• cod in Mediterranean sauce, with tomato, black olives and red pepper
• the Ikarus burger
• and the surtido de postres, the mixed dessert plate, for the undecided

Who is behind it

The restaurant belongs to Carlos Martínez, whom plenty of people on the island already know from 4 Lunas, the restaurant at the Princesa Yaiza hotel in Playa Blanca. This is not a newcomer who opened somewhere pretty: he comes from high-end hotel dining and is working here at a different scale.

Practical details

Where: Plaza Clavijo y Fajardo, La Villa de Teguise.
Phone: +34 928 84 57 01.

Hours: closed Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday 1–4pm and 7.30–10pm; Friday and Saturday 1–10pm straight through; Sunday 1–4pm and 7.30–10pm.
Restaurant hours shift with the season: a phone call before you set off saves the journey.

And if you go on a Sunday, allow for the market: La Villa fills up, you park at the edge of the village and walk in.