Tenerife Fine dining

Tenerife carries more high-end cooking than the rest of the archipelago put together, most of it attached to the large hotels along the south coast and a smaller, more interesting group standing on its own in the north.

The argument these kitchens make is the same one: the island grows almost everything a serious menu needs, at four different altitudes, within an hour's drive. Goat cheese, bananas, avocados, black pork, Atlantic fish, wild herbs from the laurel forest and wine from vines that phylloxera never reached. Tasting menus are the norm, booking well ahead is sensible in the winter season, and prices sit some way below the mainland for equivalent cooking.