San Roque

An extraordinary place! The hotel has incredible charm and every room and every bedroom is decorated with a great deal of taste and refinement. All the staff are extremely smiling, discreet, and kind! Thank you with all my heart to Manolo for his liveliness, his enthusiasm in answering our questions, and sharing with passion the heritage and life of Garachico. The breakfasts are very good with fresh products. The proposed menus are of excellent finesse and an explosion of flavors! A true moment of happiness.

Having had a very poor experience at the Parador Las Canadas (see review), we drove through a stunning landscape down to Garachico, a very lovely and historically fascinating old town by the sea. During the day it's a bit full with daytrippers, but come aperitif time it's quiet (apart from the wonderful sound of local music groups practicing with their windows open). We were booked in at the Boutique Hotel San Roque for five days, and it was a delight. We had a room overlooking the quiet street, with old-fashioned window seats enabling us to indulge in that quintessentially relaxing activity, watching the world go by below. The room was very comfortable, with a gorgeous old Canarian wooden roof and floor, Stepping out of it, it got even better, the building being an old Canarian town house with a gorgeous inner courtyard with a marvellous cool wooden balcony running all around it, studded with comfortable sofas and chairs. The roof terrace has delightful views over the town and the landscape, alongside comfortable sunloungers. The pool is lovely and beautifully set in the next courtyard along. It's really a necessity in this place, because due to the sea state, it's not really possible to swim in the sea here until June. The sea is very dangerous and only calms down between June and August, making the local charcos (natural swimming pools in the lava rocks) inaccessible for most of the year. That came as a bit of a surprise to us who chose to go to Garachico for some water therapy in said charcos: none of the guide books we consulted mentioned this. There is a sheltered pebble beach at the other end of town (playa del muelle), but in the five days we spent in Garachico, the sea calmed down enough for us to go for a swim only on one of those days. And we were visiting at the end of May, so that gives you an idea of how rare good swimming conditions are in Garachico. Not surprisingly, most of the town turned out for some water-based fun on that day! Back to the Boutique Hotel San Roque! Around the pool are the restaurant tables - an unusual set-up which took us a few minutes to get used to at first. But after a short while we started to really enjoy the soft light the pool created for us diners and the sense of freshness the water provides. And in the morning it served to pep us up for the day. That restaurant. Wow! The Chef is a bit of a wizard, and we ate there four times and wished we'd not gone elsewhere for the fifth night... An amazing modern take on Canarian cuisine, fresh and surprising. The salt cod fritters, the ceviche, the seared tuna, the sirloin, the fabulous desserts...Not one misstep. The wine list was excellent, prices very reasonable and service first-class. Talking of service - everyone we met at the Hotel was so friendly and helpful, and the cleaning staff was amazing. We felt welcome and instantly relaxed into recovery mode. They've got this great button-that-summons-up-drinks system - throughout the hotel public spaces, there are little gizmos on the tables, a bit like the old bell systems in posh houses. You press the button anywhere in the hotel, a lovely waitress appears, and a few minutes later you have your delightful drinky-poo and/or snack in hand. Marvellous. The hotel is very quiet, so if you want to party, you need to go elsewhere. But we didn't want to party, we wanted to relax and read and think and swim and eat wonderful food. We couldn't have found a better place to do these things.

What a wonderful discovery that this small hotel of 20 rooms. Colonial style very well decorated with a very nice spacious room (the 107). Very quiet with parking 100m to park very easily. Staff with little care. The indoor pool is rather decorative, but this gives a very nice setting for breakfast and dinner. Hearty breakfast and very good. We had half board at dinner and it was delicious. The relaxation areas for having an aperitif or reading are very pleasant. In short a small hotel on top, far from the noise of tourists.