Seafood Bar by Caviar House & Prunier, Málaga

Malaga has long been a favourite, convenient and above all cheap entry point for my frequent visits to the south of Spain and the wonderful hinterland of Andalucía with its mountains, plains, ancient cities and of course its wonderful variety and tradition of food and wine. However, while convenient until this March at least Malaga Airport has had very little to recommend it, being scruffy, down at heel and all too often hot and crowded. The old airport had very little to offer either in the way of eating and drinking when waiting for the inevitably delayed flight home. At long last, with the long awaited opening of Terminal 3 everything has changed and the new terminal is a vast open airy box of glass supported by a lattice of steel. Although some things have yet to improve and in common with many other Spanish airports progress through security, a challenge at best, is made all the more fraught in that once you have loaded up your trays (3 in my case: laptop, jacket and coat, belt, hat, cigarette case, etc) plus my camera bag you then have to carry all of these over to the conveyor belt that feeds into the x-ray machine. Why can’t it be one continuous belt as in UK airports?! Anyway rant over and once you are through security you find yourself surrounded by a variety of brand new sparkling shops and restaurants. While many of the restaurants are the familiar fast food hamburger, piazza and coffee shops and restaurants you see the world over there is another restaurant, also a familiar but in this case a truly welcome site – The Caviar House and Prunier Seafood Bar. Although well established at Gatwick, Heathrow, not to mention more exotic locations including Sydney, JFK, Dubai and Hong Kong, this is the first Seafood Bar at a Spanish airport and given the Spanish love of seafood it is not a moment too soon. Unfortunately the Seafood Bar is really hidden away and it is only because we had seen one of the staff wearing their apron outside the terminal building that we were looking out for it. So as soon a we were airside and with time to spare we made a bee line for the restaurants but after walking up and down the whole restaurant area and still no sign of the Seafood Bar we were about to abandon the search when I chanced to look up and there it was on the mezzanine above the main restaurants but how to get up there? A careful search to the left failed to show any way up and similarly a search to the right also failed to show any way up to the mezzanine. Continuing on, following a curving concrete wall we finally came to a staircase and lift up to the mezzanine level! Even upon reaching the top of the stairs it was not obvious that we had arrived but following another curving wall we finally achieved our goal!
The Seafood Bar is spacious, bright, elegant and definitely not crowded. The menu offers the usual range of oysters, smoked salmon, crab, etc plus a local speciality clams which are know as conchas finas. We of course had to try the conchas finas visually with their bright orange scarlet and pale pink flesh they were visually stunning and the taste didn’t disappoint either and was perfectly complemented by a glass of albarino, the measures for which were significantly larger than I’ve seen in other Seafood Bars. Discovering that our flight was delayed we then tried a couple of Bloody Marys. In contrast to previous “meals” at the airport which consisted of lumps of congealed pasta,, limp wet sandwiches and miniature plastic bottles of wine all of which were at vastly inflated prices and served in conditions reminiscent of a 70’s works canteen this was heaven and the prospect of a delayed Easy Jet flight arriving late back into Gatwick no longer seemed to matter. So, if you find yourself with time to spare in Malaga Airport and seafood is your thing make the effort to find this special place you can count on a warm welcome from the staff as well as a memorable meal. A perfect end to any visit to Andalucía. (for additional photos please see http://www.greenshootsphotography.com/gallery.php )