La Bistro d'Alain Tenerife

About La Bistro d'Alain

Do you like surprises? From the outside, you wouldn’t give Le Bistrot d’Alain a second glance (unless you were already in the know). Step inside however, and you’re swept into rural France. Frilly lace drapes and dimmed table lamps on a cluster of tables help to provide a subdued air of small town elegance. Petit figurines of chefs line illuminated wall cabinets and the wooden bar.

This is obviously a dining venue proud of the role of a chef – a tribute, a passion, a craft of masters. A framed award backs up this theory, ‘Alain Mills – Best Foreign Chef in Tenerife 1995’. Born in Northern France, Alain trained at Thonons Les Bains before opening his first restaurant in Paris. Due to a love of the Canary Islands, 17 years ago he brought his skills to the island and together with his wife Francoise, has been providing fine food lovers with an exemplary dining experience at this charming Bistro in Los Cristianos.

There is no fixed menu as such, a choice of entrees and main dishes are chalked on blackboard, changing on a weekly basis. With only a schoolboy knowledge of French that extended little further than the first refrain of Frère Jacques, I was glad to be offered the chance to leave the selection up to Alain.

Dish after dish kept arriving, each one a visual masterpiece; terrine of foie gras with glazed red onions, carpaccio of tuna with herring eggs in a pepper vinaigrette, chicken liver with apple and honey, scallops Provencal, salmon in tomato and basil sauce, quail with porcini mushrooms and pear and finally rich chocolate mousse with peach and apricot sauce. FInally overwhelmed, I waved the white flag and surrendered to Alain's remarkable talents.

A visit to Le Bistro D'Alain is as close as you can get to rural France without buying a plane or a ferry ticket. And probably a damn sight friendlier!