Hotel Castilla

This is a phrase I generally abhor but I felt obliged to use it to persuade all those who come to the Costa and never venture further to give it a try. Because if you do (and we do, often] you'll be rewarded with amazing experiences. Show passion and interest in the food and drink you are served and you'll be treated like locals. Our latest such adventure was on the Wednesday in Easter week. With processions in the town and bars and restaurants heaving and no restaurant in our hotel we wondered where we should eat. Learning from our experience the night before in Carmona we thought “if there's no restaurant in our hotel then find a hotel that does have one”. And it worked. Arriving at the hotel Castilla we peered in and could see that beyond the busy bar at the front there was a restaurant area with some unoccupied tables. We pushed through and were warmly greeted within enough English to compensate for our execrable Spanish. A fabulous meal ensued. What you might call hearty fare but all beautifully cooked. The five media racions we ordered were phased rather than all arriving at one go as is often the case. The prawns pil pil were particularly good. We had two glasses of white, a bottle of very good Ribera at a ridiculous price of €13 (and two more glasses of that at the end). The place was busy and bustling but the service was impeccable and here's the thing - it was also warm and engaging. We were the only non-locals and clearly passing through but we received the attention you'd expect if you were there every night. Hopefully our enthusiasm and delight at what was being served up was the reason. It just goes to show that these sorts of old-style good value places still exist. I checked the bill three times as I thought they had missed something. Just €53. Brilliant!