Hello friends, its been a while. Hope you’ve all had a decent start to the year so far. My February involved travelling to Puerto Banus in Spain for a week of good food and sunshine. During this stay, we had the pleasure of staying at what I can only describe as one of the best hotels have stayed in so far, the 4 star Melia Marbella Banus. The hotel was just a few minutes walk from the port, famous for its shops and Yacht’s. We opted for the hotel’s Level service experience. This entailed access to an exclusive lounge that serves snacks and alcohol all day (I spent hours drinking champagne and eating those lovely sandwiches instead of actually exploring Marbella), a nice spacious room with a view and much more.
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| British Airways |
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| Garden level room |
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| Lounge Access |
The food served by the hotel was simply fresh and delicious. We had an all inclusive breakfast, however the meals were soo good, we actually ended up having dinner at the hotel 3 nights running. Quite unlike me to be honest as I love eating out a lot.
Breakfast
Dinner:
This entailed some buffet style dishes, fresh fish and meat grilled by the very friendly staff in the pictures below (Thanks Carmen and Mr anonymous Chef) and some nice desserts
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| Very friendly staff |
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| Carmen |
Now for the food 🙂
During our stay in Marbella, we also explored the port area
We ate at an ok Argentinian steak restaurant called El Gaucho de Banus during our walks in the port area
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| Roquefort steak with herb cream, white wine and Roquefort cheese |
We visited the beautiful Marbella Old town and Orange square. The Orange square, which dates back to 1485 is now surrounded by loads of restaurants, shops, boutiques and churches.
A few hours of walking around the Old town led us to a restaurant called Marbella Patio by chance and aren’t I glad. This is a family owned restaurant serving very good dishes that you can have either on tables outside the restaurant, or in the beautifully decorated interior dining room. The waiters and owner (Pedro) were quite friendly and charming. I later found out that this restaurant was ranked 35th out of 933 restaurants in Marbella by customers on Tripadvisor.
We had some nice dishes at Marbella Patio .A chickpea soup (on the house), some home made croquettes, roasted suckling pig, Duck confit with Malaga wine and a home made caramel pudding to share.
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| Home made croquette |
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| Confit duck with Malaga wine sauce: The duck ever so soft, on a bed of potatoes soaked in the sauce was delicious |

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| Suckling Pig |
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| Home made caramel dessert. Quite sweet and Moorish. |
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| Pedro: The owner |
One of the things to do in Marbella definitely has to be eating at this restaurant. The laid back atmosphere, friendly staff and good food makes this a top restaurant in my book. Thanks for the meal Pedro.
A nice meal at the restaurant was soon followed by a walk back to our hotel. All 90 minutes of it ( 8 mins by cab if you cant make the walk). What a nice walk it was as well.
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| Salvador Dali |
Back at our hotel, I arranged a nice tour trip with the help of the hotel staff (Maria) to Tangier, Morocco (Check out my next blog for a few pics) with the help of Maria. This trip was taking place on Valentines day, so I asked if she could get decorate the hotel room with Flowers and a piece of cake as a surprise on our return. Thanks for the Set up Fernando. Well appreciated.
I had a wonderful time in Marbella, and I have to say that this Hotel played a big role. I look forward to visiting Marbella again in the not to distant future.
Bye for now and See you soon
