A different (and very volcanic) way of tasting Canarian potatoes.
In the Montañas del Fuego of Lanzarote, there where the earth, still today, boils at more than 600 degrees of temperature Due to the volcanic eruptions recorded in the south of the island in the 18th century and which gave rise to the Timanfaya National Park, the peculiar restaurant El Diablo, designed by César Manrique, was built on the Islet of Hilario.
In it, and on the grill an oven that uses the volcanic heat that comes from the depths (more than ten meters away), meat and vegetables are cooked in a way that is as natural as it is picturesque. For this reason, it is not surprising that the circular structure of volcanic stone, where culinary magic takes place, is one of the most attractive points of this Center of Art, Tourism and Culture of Lanzarote.
A chicken and some potatoes have never been so interesting for the traveler.
From the interior of the earth comes the heat with which it is cooked in the volcanic oven of El Diablo.
This brilliant artistic intervention from 1970, in which the human creation and nature are integrated with the sensitivity and absolute respect for the environment that only Manrique was capable of orchestrating, it is much more than a restaurant with views of the 25 dormant craters of the 200 square kilometer sea of lava in which it is located.
It is a master class on how to control the impact of mass tourism by devising, already at that time, a system by which access to the Timanfaya National Park is restricted without preventing the visitor from participating in the wonders of one of the most impressive volcanic landscapes in the world.
Using contemporary language, César Manrique devised El Diablo and the so-called Ruta de los Volcanes, which gives access to the restaurant and runs through a quasi-lunar territory along a narrow and careful road designed to cause the least physical and visual impact and through which you can only circulate through the service of guides and buses of the Cabildo.
Lunar landscape of the Timanfaya National Park, in Lanzarote.
It is striking, in the circular building with only one floor, the contrast between the sobriety of the exterior, made of stone with glass walls, and the decorative exuberance of the interior, with its Dead Garden, its decapitated dome and its seventies pop aesthetic bar with lamps that are pans or pans that are lamps.
There is no better place in Lanzarote to perceive the geothermal activity of the subsoil than this, nor a better restaurant to try local Canarian products. That was already intuited by the visionary Manrique almost 50 years ago and we owe it to him that, in addition, we can enjoy all of this without impacting the environment and without feeling guilty for having access to one of the most magical and picturesque regions of our country.