El Lago Restaurante Marbella – the beginning of a new chapter

Set overlooking a lake in Marbella’s prestigious golf community of Elviria Hills, Restaurante El Lago is commencing a new chapter in its illustrious story. With new owners and Chef Milos leading the kitchen, the restaurant has unveiled this season’s lunch and dinner menus. The restaurant has also launched a creative gastronomic tasting menu with a selection of dishes created by Chef Milos, who continues to offer a cuisine based on seasonal and zero-kilometre produce.

Recently The Luxury Editor headed to east Marbella to experience the new ‘Harmony’ / ‘Armonia’ tasting menu at El Lago Marbella, a fine dining restaurant with an impressive wine list and a magnificent terrace overlooking the lake and golf course.

We were immersed in the new culinary narrative being crafted by Chef Milos Zdravkovic and his team including delicious wine pairings by sommelier Felipe.

The restaurant ambiance is renewed, relaxed, and the team is brimming with optimism. This restaurant has an award-winning past, but nothing can stand still. The new owners and Chef Milos want to evolve into a more relaxed fine-dining restaurant. A place for couples, families (and events) with a apetite to devour local cuisine, yet without the overt focus on formality.

Armonia – tasting menu

The cuisine is a delight, with the strong focus on local produce becoming clear as soon as the pre-dinner cocktail arrives, made with a dash of delicious amontillado wine, with melon juice, a shaving of ginger and a drizzle of local honey from the village of Istan. The local flavours continue with the pre-starters, including a crispy cone of flavoursome goat tartar & honey, as well as smoked tuna belly wrapped around aromatic salad leaves from a farm in Coín.

Chef Milos dials up the creativity with exquisite dishes like the cured bonito tuna with nori, (sitting on a dish of traditional Malaga ajo blanco and topped with katsuobushi flakes of fermented dried tuna), while keeping things grounded and unpretentious with simple pleasures of roasted leek baked with a Stilton bechamel sauce.

The main dishes of roasted Malaga goat with payoyo cheese sauce and the local ‘salmonete’ red mullet are elevated by their precision preparation and creative garnishes like the Japanese cucumber salad.

The dessert of honey and pink pepper panna cotta with red fruit couli is elegant and light, allowing for further indulgence including summery petits fois, including ingenious mojito infused melon.

The a la carte menu begins with oysters and champagne, and different starters such as red prawn carpaccio with garlic and caviar; white garlic with cured tuna, nori, seasonal fruits and katsuoboushi; or roasted carrots from the restaurant’s organic farmers, olive tabbouleh and goat yoghurt with cumin sauce. To continue, main courses include matured beef tataki with marrow sauce and pepper emulsion, roast shoulder of kid from Malaga with payoyo cheese sauce and seasonal vegetables, grilled Iberian feather with homemade pickles and Pedro Ximénez sauce, panko red mullet with Japanese cucumber salad “sunomono” and coral sauce, or sea bass in velouté sauce with champagne and smoked roe. Among the desserts: the supreme chocolate tart with salted caramel and coffee ice cream, the semifreddo of popcorn, corn crumble and spicy notes or the rum pineapple with passion fruit cream and coconut ice cream.

Award-winning

Currently, El Lago is recommended by the prestigious Michelin Guide, holds two Repsol Suns and is ranked in the Top 10 by the Macarfi Guide. The history of El Lago began in 2000 and has been constantly evolving over time. What started out as a restaurant in the Club House of Greenlife Golf has become a benchmark for haute cuisine in Malaga and Andalusia.

Chef Milos Zdravkovic

Chef Milos Zdravkovic was born in Serbia and trained at the Higher School of Tourism and Hotel Management at the University of Belgrade. Once in Marbella, his professional experience in the kitchen began as head chef in several restaurants of the Dani García Group. In 2020 he joined the kitchen team at El Lago and is currently the executive chef and responsible for the new gastronomic offering. His goal is to maintain the philosophy of the restaurant, committed to small producers in the area and using the finest zero-kilometre produce.

Information

Restaurante El Lago is open for lunch on Tuesdays and for lunch & dinner on Wednesdays through to Sunday.   The tasting menu is 125 euros, and for the wine pairing it is 55 euros extra.