El Far (Hotel Restaurant) Llafranc Spain

[thumbelina]

We were en route for lunch at Tamariu yesterday and decided to pop up to the Lighthouse at Llafranc for a quick look.

When we arrived up there, we thought we may as well throw an eye over the hotel that's up at the top. What a find!

There is an amazing 15th century hermitage tower which (on paying 1€ each) you can climb - views are stunning as is the architecture. Coming out of the tower you then see the site of an archaelogical dig which are the remains of an ancient village - very clearly marked (signage and explanations in English)

We then decided, as it was so beautiful up there, to have a look at the resto.

Am I glad we did!


http://www.elfar.net/index.php?lang=en

It's not cheap. I won't pretend otherwise. But it was one of my more pleasurable dining experiences in recent years.

One downside - there was a young waitress who was neither friendly NOR welcoming. The rest of the team more than made up for this, however, as they were charming (especially the silver tongued rather dishy maitre d' ladies lloooolllll ).

Only two of us wanted an apero, so we had two Ricard accompanied by a little appetiser for everyone - a lovely individual loaf of bread with some ripe tomatoes and scrummy olive oil.

Our starters were :

- salad of broad beans and peas with little pieces of black pudding
- salad of brie croquettes with onion marmalade
- anchovies and whitebait (off of the tapas menu)
- calamars a la romaine - Mr Thumbers (Catalan) says the best calamars he's eaten in ten years!!!!!)
- salad of roquette, goats cheese and nuts

This was accompanied by a very acceptable bottle of Albarino wine.

Main courses were :

- paella El Far for two
- fish of the day (rap - monkfish)
- meat cannelloni (off of the starter menu)
- beef carpaccio with parmesan (melt in the mouth sublime)

Accompanied by a second bottle of very acceptable Alabrino - oh, and two bottles of Vichy Catalan too.

Onto pudneys :

- tiramisu
- mel y mato for two of us
- bucks fizz with vanilla ice cream

two carajilio anis, one carajilio baileys and a large white coffee completed the experience.

The bill was 234€ so around 47€ a head - as I said, not cheap but, in my opinion, well worth the money.

They do have a menu of the month which costs 30€ a head and is accompanied by wines from the very excellent Castillo de Peralada which we've mentioned on the forum before.

There are themes for the menu of the month, some of which include :

March - anchovies, April - salt cod, May - peas and broad beans, June - blue fish etc etc

I would recommend reserving a table as it was quite busy when we left. If you are looking for a lovely drive out one day with a luxurious lunch in a gorgeous clifftop location, I cannot recommend this place highly enough. I can't WAIT to go back!

(didn't get to Tamariu! )

[john]

Doesn't sound out of the way to me Thumbers. Agreed ,it is not the sort of place that most of us could afford to eat at on a daily basis,but it proves you can eat memorably without spending the eye-watering shed-loads of cash that some folk feel it necessary to do.

[thumbelina]

I felt it was very good value for money, tbh John. As you say, not somewhere you could afford to eat every day, but lovely for a little treat.

[BT]

Sounds great.

My sister has mentioned Llafrank to me before, she drops in on the way back to Girona from St Cyp, she loves the place. It's well off the direct way back, but well worth the trip.

BT