Explore The Spanish City Of Malaga Like A Local

Malaga is both a city and province in southern Spain, and during 18 months before the year 2022—according to the Spanish National Institute of Statistics—had the greatest absolute gain in population in the country. Malaga is one of 50 Spanish provinces, and sits within Andalusia—one of the country’s 17 regions—which also includes such well known cities as Marbella and Seville. Some two million passengers arrive each month at the Malaga airport along the southern Costa del Sol, making the region inundated with non-Spaniards seeking an affordable lifestyle in a warm climate with well developed infrastructure.

Malaga is a university town with ample museums, tapas bars and pedestrian pathways. It is both gateway to Costa del Sol, Granada and Cordoba as well as to Gibraltar and Morocco, and is itself a diverse and lively destination. The region has eight Michelin star restaurants and the city includes a thousand five-star hotel beds.

A group of wine writer friends recently gathered in Malaga to sip sangria, taste Tempranillo and uncork cava between ambling on a four-hour foot tour to delve into the city’s wine and food scene. Jeff Jenssen and Mike De Simone (known as The World Wine Guys) arrived from their Spanish home in the nearby city of Nerja (pronounced NAIR-ka). They guided myself and Houston, Texas based wine writer Sandra Crittenden on a pedestrian tour that highlighted a lively slice of Malaga’s culinary/wine scene.

We began—in this city of fewer than 600,000 residents—at Antigua Casa de Guardia (‘the old guard house’)—a lively and rustic brick walled cavern/tavern lined with dark barrels filled with multiple sherries. Bodies jostled in this frenetic standing room only locale. Founded in 1840, this oldest bar in the city serves local sherries, vermouth and muscatel wines as well as bar snacks such as shrimp and prawns. We sampled both Pedro Ximen and Pajarette 1908 sherries as aperitifs to begin our pedestrian foray.

We moved on to the adjacent covered market—Mercado de Atarazanas—located on a water front established by Phoenicians more than a millennia ago. Moorish ships docked here in the 14th century before Christians seized control to create a local military hospital and barracks. The market—below a polychromatic tiled roof—oozes with eye tickling foodstuffs such as corazones de Malaga, or ’hearts of Malaga’—sliced figs stuffed with almonds. There are also mushrooms known as seta de cardo (king trumpet) and boletus (porcini), and chewy percebes (barnacles). This high ceilinged site is boisterous and colorful on Saturday afternoon.

We moved on along city streets filled with scents of barbecued meats and spices and the sounds of laughing families and cackling babies. At an outlet name La Mallorquina we peered through a window showing canned foods including berberechos (cockles), chipirones rellenos (stuffed baby squids), mejillones (mussels), foie de bacalao (cod foie gras), pates of both jabali, faisan and perdiz (boar, pheasant and partridge) as well as anchovies and cod roe.

We next moved northwest from Plaza de Felix Saenz down Calle Alarcón Lujan and then ducked into La Taberna del Pintxo Larios to eat. We piled plates with self-served pintxos (elaborate tapas). Blackboards hanging high show how to price different pinxtos by the type of toothpicks they are skewered on (collected later to tally a bill). In addition to eating beef, smoked salmon, caviar and cheese pintxos we also tasted queso manchego curado (hard cheese). We paired the nibbles with a bottle of 2020 Marqués de Riscal txakoli (pronounced CHAK-ol-eee), a slightly effervescent, acidic, low-alcohol wine from Spain’s northwestern Basque country.

After eating informal appetizers we moved along Calle Marques de Larios—a pedestrian street of polished marble and green granite—to view Malaga Cathedral (famed for asymmetry: its second tower is missing). We next entered award-winning El Chinitas bar and restaurant with an easygoing familial banter as well as hefty bustle of local workers.

We ordered a bottle of 2021 Anares Terranova Verdejo wine—crisp and light with flavors of salt and mandarins—and paired this with provolone cheese and pimientos de padrón, shriveled green peppers with a textured taste that drives salivation and thirst.

To wind down we sat outside at La Taverna del Obispo with a view of the main cathedral and drank café cortado, or cut coffee, because of added milk. We then ambled past Alcazaba Teatro-Pileta Roman theater before moving past the Picasso Museum and then heading to the coastal boardwalk.

Malaga’s waterfront is lively, with docked cruise ships and evocatively named yachts such as Serendipia. The pedestrian way includes pumped in public music, elegant couples, dancing entertainers, yapping families eating lunch, and promenading magnates dressed in designer jackets and swish skirts walking beagles. Kids swing in public parks and singers at open air bars croon Lionel Richie with a fiesta, party-forever energy.

Voted by the website European Best Destinations as having one of Europe’s top 20 Christmas markets—Malagas is a city to consider visiting during coming weeks.