14th Apr 2023 @ 10:29 am

The iconic restaurant that sits atop the Fire Mountains has been listed as one of the six most impressive places to eat in the world by National Geographic.

In an online travel article published on National Geographic’s website, the restaurant El Diablo has been named as one of the world’s most stunning places to eat.

The article reads:

On Lanzarote Island’s Restaurante el Diablo, food is cooked by superheated steam escaping from an active volcano vent in Timanfaya National Park.

Established in 1974, the park revolves around the Montañas del Fuego (“Mountains of Fire”) in a desolate volcanic landscape that could easily pass for Mars. The area was considered a barren wasteland until park authorities created a visitor center, hiking trails, a motor touring route, and the mountaintop restaurant.

Built with basalt stone spewed by those eruptions, El Diablo’s open-air grill barbecues meat and seafood at temperatures between 450˚ and 500˚ Celsius. Beyond carnivorous delights, the circular eatery serves island favorites like “wrinkled” arrugada potatoes with mojo sauce made with small papas bonita and papas negra grown in the Canary Islands. Sweet treats include a cinder-cone-shaped dessert called the Lanzarote Volcano made with chocolate, honey, almonds, and local gofio flour.

Despite its mountaintop location, El Diablo is easy to reach via Highway 67 from elsewhere in Lanzarote. Parking is just outside and there’s only a short uphill walk. After your meal, drive the park’s nine-mile paved Route of the Volcanoes. You can also work off calories by walking the 3.9-mile Tremesana Trail around a small volcano of the same name or the shoreline trail where lava meets the sea.

Cabildo president, María Dolores Corujo, stated that “El Diablo is a jewel, a sample of the creativity of Cesar Manrique; a resounding example of the talent of a genius who was able to imagine a restaurant in a magical natural space.”

CACT CEO, Benjamín Perdomo, thanks the worker’s at Timanfaya “for their effort, enthusiasm and constant commitment to ensuring that the Fire Mountains always look just as Manrique imagined them.”

For regular updates, pictures and videos of Lanzarote be sure to like and follow our Facebook page “Gazette Life Lanzarote”.