Espeto De Sardinas appears as a signature dish in 1 Spain cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Espeto de sardinas · Málaga
Málaga's defining dish: six fat sardines threaded onto a cane skewer and grilled over driftwood embers in a beached boat, eaten with your fingers and a squeeze of lemon on the sand.
The espeto was born in the fishing villages of El Palo and Pedregalejo in the 19th century, where crews cooked their catch on cane skewers stuck into the sand beside a fire. Legend credits the Bono brothers and a royal visit by Alfonso XII in 1884 with fixing the tradition. Today espeteros still build driftwood fires inside old boats hulled with sand, angling the skewers toward the flames so the sardines cook on one side only. Sardines are fattest and best from May to September, the months when Málaga eats them almost nightly on the beach.
Where to eat in Málaga:
- El Tintero
- El Cabra
- Los Cuñaos
- Miguelito el Cariñoso
- El Caleño