Guillermo Lorenzo is a small-scale worker of miracles…read more
Guillermo is the chef and proprietor at De Locos Tapas, and what he does at this tiny spot is difficult to believe until you experience it. He is the owner, chef, front-of-the-house guy, and server, all at the same time. How a guy who wears so many hats manages to conceive of and produce such a large variety of small-scale gourmet items at prices this low is beyond me.
Our first encounter with Mr. Lorenzo actually wasn't too great. I'd earlier attempted to reserve a table through De Locos's website, but never received a response (we were in Spain without phone service, so I couldn't call ahead, and we'd just arrived at our hotel). So we trekked over to the restaurant without a reservation and waited around for the place to open at 7:30 pm in order to try our luck. When we walked in and explained our situation, Mr. Lorenzo frankly was not very friendly or welcoming, even though no other diners were present at the time. But he led us upstairs to a table nonetheless, explaining that he would need our table by 9:30.
As soon as we were seated, though, the rather surly version of Mr. Lorenzo switched off like a light, and the excellent, gregarious impresario version of Mr. Lorenzo switched on. What happened over the next couple of hours was just about the best dining experiences we'd ever had at prices this low. He brought us plate after plate of wonderfully composed and almost uniformly delicious, mostly non-traditional tapas, which we ordered off of a handwritten-in-English menu (see the attached photos). While simultaneously perfectly pacing everything and playing the consummate cosmopolitan, hospitable, charming restaurant host. (A native of Bilbao with a globe-trotting resume and excellent English, he told us former New Orleans residents that his grandmother was born in New Orleans.)
I've attached photos of the menu from that night, and, frankly, at this late date, I can't remember everything we had. But the ox cheeks, lamb tagine, smoked duck, oyster Bloody Mary, seabass ceviche, and red tuna tataki stood out. Everything was terrific, though, with the possible exception of the piquillo pepper stuffed with crab, which was just kind of mushy. We're not the biggest dessert eaters, but the Bailey's ice cream was terrific as well. All of this beautiful stuff, plus a couple of drinks each, set us back less than 40 euro, which just seems like an impossibly good deal.
P.S. De Locos isn't all that easy to find if you're staying in the main, touristy part of Ronda. You've got to head south down the main road from the old town toward the Barrio San Francisco. Just before the road bends right as you're looking at the rather imposing Iglesia del Espiritu Santo, drop down the "ramp" on the left to the Calle Espiritu Santo, which leads to a little triangular square just inside the wall. When you get to the square, hang a left. De Locos is a the end of the row of buildings, facing the wall and square. (We went on All Saints Day, missed the "ramp," and ended up in the big square in San Francisco, where masses of locals were assembled for festivities. That got us totally turned around...)
