Trying to catch some late summer sun, I’ve just spent a week in the sun soaked Costa del Sol with hubby and sons. We were based in Benalmádena and took a day trip to Malaga and Benalmádena Pueblo (pretty village with whitewashed houses).
In this post, I’ll tell you about the restaurants I ate at which offered gluten free options along with some itinerary ideas.
The Research
Google and Findmeglutenfree.com were great for searching for gluten free restaurants. I also picked up a recommendation on Instagram.
I attempted to pin all the restaurants onto the Ulmon City Maps To Go app on my phone.
My coeliac Spanish translation card from previous trips (link in the Resources section below) came on the trip too.
Benalmádena Restaurants
Black Angus Corner
As we arrived on a late evening flight, we didn’t expect to find anywhere serving food at 10.30pm. We wandered to a small block of restaurants near our hotel in Torrequebrada and were pleasantly surprised to find that we could still eat there. I spoke to the waiter who advised they could do gluten free food. Bonus! Anything from the grilled meat section of the menu could be served gluten free and gluten free spaghetti was also available. I had a skewer of grilled chicken, peppers and courgettes. This was served with a jacket potato wrapped in foil. Nothing fancy but the food was good.
Pasta Fresca
We discovered two of these restaurants both based along the main road, Avenida Antonio Machado… about 15 to 20 minutes walk apart. One is near the McDonald’s. The other is further towards the marina. This place provided me with one of those wonderful and elusive items…a gluten free menu! There were choices of pizza, pasta, meat and fish dishes.
The gluten free options we tried were the Pasta Al Pomodoro and pizza. On our first visit, the pizza had a burnt crust but it was fine on the second visit. The bases were thick and easy to cut through. You may want to think twice about the tuna and onion pizza if you don’t like raw onions…they seemed to have been added after the pizza had been cooked…and there were lots of them!
Buena Vista
This was a tapas place heading towards the marina. You have to walk down off the main road along a promenade. It’s quite a small entrance so check where it is and keep your eyes peeled. We went there twice during our five day stay. Speaking to the staff, they mentioned that a lot of people went there for gluten free food. All the items that are gluten free are clearly indicated on the menu. We had six gluten free tapas between the three of us and struggled to finish these because they were so filling. The only dish we didn’t reorder was the Russian salad. It wasn’t really very salad-like. In fact it had the appearance of a coleslaw. It was a bit bland compared to all the other tapas. My favourites were the special cod in cream sauce, lasagne and quesadillas. A lovely cosy little place with very friendly staff.
Metro Italiano Ristorante
This restaurant was in the marina. A fairly large and very busy place. We had to wait a while to get seated. They offered a variety of dishes that could be served gluten free including pizza and some pasta dishes. I had pizza…again …(just because I could). The service and food were both good.
Burger King
Burger King was the surprise addition to my list of gluten free places to eat! We only discovered this when my son popped in and saw the gluten free cheeseburger whilst using the electronic order point.
Benalmádena Pueblo
We stopped for a quick bite in the village at a cafe called La Casa De Maria Soto. This place wasn’t on my research list but after a conversation with the staff, they were able to suggest some tapas that would be safe. I had cheese, pork in a tomato sauce and chicken skewers.
Malaga
La Plaza
This busy restaurant is located on the corner of Calle Alcazabilla near the Roman Theatre. They offered gluten free pizza bases, pasta and burger buns. I decided to go for something different and had the Cauliflower and Sweet Potato with Spicy Tomato Sauce and the Indian Spiced Potato Cakes whilst my son ordered the gluten free hamburger. The spicy tomato sauce was not quite what I expected as it was very spicy and dotted sparingly over the cauliflower. Still, it was a nice change to all the meat, pizza and pasta I’d been consuming.
Breakfast was included our hotel and I had an omelette with beans every day. Gluten free bread was also available on request.
Itinerary Ideas
Day Trip to Malaga
Even though we had a hire car, we decided to take the bus to Malaga. The 110 bus went past our hotel and along the main Avenida Antonio Machado through Benalmádena . It cost less than two euros each and saved the hassle of city parking.
I had booked us onto a walking tour with freetour.com (link below). I’m a great fan of free tours as the tour guide has the motivation to explain and entertain. You then pay what you think the tour was worth. Our guide Javier was funny and informative. In two hours we had learnt about the history of the city and some of its key monuments.
Day Trip to Benalmádena Pueblo, Stupa and Castle
We took bus 103 to its last stop which is the Buddhist Stupa. After taking a moment to absorb the tranquility of the Stupa, we walked downhill towards the Castillo de Colomares. It’s a monument resembling a fairy tale castle dedicated to Christopher Colombus. As it was due to close for siesta, we took pictures as soon as we got a good view from the hillside.
We headed back uphill past the Stupa and onto the village, Benalmádena Pueblo. It was certainly as pretty as our research had suggested. Here we wandered through the streets, stopping for a cup of tea and then later, some tapas.
Malaga Airport
I thought it might be worth putting in a note here about the airport as I hadn’t been there before. It’s a large airport with many cafes and restaurants. I didn’t get to check the menus but there was a Giraffe, Burger King, Costa Coffee and Starbucks as well as many other places.
I hope you’ve found this informative if you’re heading to Benalmádena. Gluten Free Survival is also on Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter so please use the links to keep up with everything I post on there too.
The resource list below has links to websites I’ve used and some of my survival kit snacks on Amazon* (if you can’t get them through your local supermarket).
Resource List
Website to research restaurants: https://www.findmeglutenfree.com
Spanish Coeliac Restaurant card: http://www.celiactravel.com/cards/spanish/
Snacks:
- Nairn’s Gluten Free Flatbreads in rosemary & sea salt
- Nairn’s Gluten Free Biscuit Breaks Oat & Fruit
- Nairn’s Gluten Free Cracked Black Pepper Wholegrain Crackers
- Schar Mini Os
Free Walking Tour: https://www.freetour.com/malaga/free-walking-tour-malaga
Gluten Free Holiday Checklist:
