Restaurant in Marbella, Spain
Five tables. Marbella's most serious kitchen.
Fernando Alcalá's five-table tasting menu restaurant is the most seriously sourced modern cooking in Marbella, with a Michelin Plate and back-to-back Opinionated About Dining Europe rankings to back it up. Two evolving menus built around three local ingredients per month, their own Iberian pigs, and a clear Andalusian-meets-Asia flavour identity. Book for lunch Thursday to Saturday for the best value entry point.
Fernando Alcalá's five-table restaurant on Avenida Antonio Belón is the most serious modern cooking happening in Marbella right now. With a Michelin Plate, back-to-back rankings on the Opinionated About Dining Europe list (including a rise to #389 in 2024), and a 4.6 Google rating across 274 reviews, Kava earns its €€€ price tag for the right diner. Book it if you want tasting-menu cooking that is genuinely rooted in Andalusian produce rather than imported luxury. Skip it if you want à la carte flexibility or a buzzy atmosphere for a large group.
Picture this: a former Zurich-based lawyer walks away from a promising legal career, returns to his hometown of Marbella, and teaches himself to cook during years of travel through Asia, Latin America, and Andalusia. That backstory would be interesting but irrelevant if the food did not deliver. At Kava, it does. The kitchen runs two evolving tasting menus, Amatxo and Lord Fer, both structured around three focal local ingredients per month, adjusted seasonally. Right now, in the current season, those menus will reflect whatever Alcalá finds at the market each morning, which means what you eat in March is not what you eat in October.
The flavour profile is grounded in traditional Andalusian cooking but pulled outward by influences from Thai and Indian cuisines. That tension between the familiar and the cosmopolitan is where Kava earns its reputation. Add to that the kitchen's own fermented products and their own acorn-fed Iberian pigs raised in Coripe, Seville, and you have a supply chain that most restaurants at this price point cannot match. The 2019 award for leading cheesecake in Spain and Alcalá's naming as Revelation of the Year at Madrid Fusión in January 2019 are not trivial markers: they confirm that this is not a restaurant coasting on Marbella's sunny reputation.
For food and travel enthusiasts who have eaten their way through Aponiente in El Puerto de Santa María, Arzak in San Sebastián, or El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Kava sits a tier below those full Michelin-starred operations but offers something genuinely different: a more personal, smaller-scale format where the chef's sourcing obsession is visible on every plate. It belongs in the same conversation as Venta Moncalvillo in Daroca de Rioja or Enoteca Paco Pérez in Barcelona as a restaurant where provenance is the point, not the marketing language.
This is worth thinking about carefully before you book. Kava opens for lunch Thursday through Saturday from 1:30 to 5 pm and for dinner Tuesday through Saturday from 7 to 11 pm. Monday and Sunday are closed. That lunch window is a meaningful opportunity. Tasting menus at restaurants working at this level frequently cost less at lunch, and in Spain particularly, the midday meal is taken seriously. If the lunch menus at Kava are priced below the dinner equivalent, you get the same kitchen and the same sourcing at a lower cost per head — and you keep your evening free. If prices are uniform across both services, dinner makes more sense for a special occasion where the full evening context matters.
The practical consideration is timing. With only five tables and the kitchen closed two days a week, availability is tighter than it first appears. Thursday and Friday lunch slots are the easiest entry points if you are visiting mid-week. Saturday lunch is likely the most competitive of the three, given it follows the full weekend trading pattern. Dinner on Friday or Saturday will be the hardest to secure on short notice.
Five tables and an urban aesthetic with design intent means this is not a casual drop-in. The space is small enough that a disruptive table affects the whole room, and intimate enough that solo diners or couples get the full benefit of that scale. The ten-course tasting menu format means you are committing to two-plus hours regardless of service. Come with time and appetite. This is not the right venue for a quick pre-theatre dinner or a group of six looking for a shared-plates experience.
For other angles on serious cooking in Marbella, BACK and Messina offer modern cuisine alternatives, while Nintai covers Japanese for those who want a change of register. Andala Marbella is the option to consider if you want Andalusian cooking in a more casual setting. See our full Marbella restaurants guide for the complete picture, and our Marbella hotels guide, bars guide, wineries guide, and experiences guide if you are planning a longer stay.
Booking difficulty is rated Easy, which is somewhat deceptive given the five-table format. That rating reflects the reality that Kava is not yet at the level of demand where weeks-long waits are standard, but do not interpret Easy as walk-in-friendly. With only five tables and a closed Sunday and Monday, the weekly cover count is low. Book at least one to two weeks out for a weekday dinner, and two to three weeks for a Friday or Saturday slot. The restaurant is at Av. Antonio Belón, 4, 29602 Marbella. No phone or website is listed in our data; check current booking channels via Google or a local concierge. Dress code is not specified but the design-led, five-table setting implies smart casual at minimum.
Quick reference: €€€ price range, Tuesday-Saturday service (lunch Thu-Sat from 1:30 pm, dinner Tue-Sat from 7 pm), five tables, tasting menus only, Michelin Plate 2024-2025, OAD Europe Top 500.
| Venue | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Kava | €€€ | — |
| Skina | €€€€ | — |
| Areia | €€€ | — |
| La Milla Marbella | €€€ | — |
| Leña Marbella | €€€ | — |
| TA-KUMI | €€€ | — |
Side-by-side comparison to help you decide where to book.
The five-table format makes solo dining workable but not ideal — you will occupy a full table in a room where space is tight. That said, Fernando Alcalá's tasting menus (Amatxo and Lord Fer) are designed around a single diner's progression through the food, so the format suits a solo guest who wants to focus on the cooking. If you are travelling alone and this is the meal you are building the trip around, book it.
Yes, if modern Andalusian cooking driven by local produce is what you are after. Alcalá's menus evolve seasonally, anchored to three local ingredients each month, and draw on Iberian, Asian, and Latin American technique — including produce from his own acorn-fed pigs in Coripe. The Michelin Plate (2025) and OAD Europe ranking (No. 436, 2025) confirm the kitchen is operating at a level that justifies the €€€ pricing. If you want à la carte flexibility, this is not the right room.
Skina is the comparison benchmark for tasting-menu dining in Marbella and sits at a higher price point with longer Michelin recognition. TA-KUMI offers Japanese-Andalusian cooking and is worth considering if you want a different flavour register at a similar spend. Leña Marbella is the right call if you want a big-room steakhouse atmosphere rather than a chef-driven tasting format. La Milla and Areia are better for casual seafront lunches than for serious cooking.
Yes, with caveats. Five tables and a designed, intimate room make Kava a genuinely special setting, and a tasting menu that changes seasonally gives the meal a sense of occasion. Book dinner rather than lunch for the full experience. The room is small enough that groups of more than two should consider whether the format suits — this is a restaurant for people who want to focus on the food, not a venue built around large-party celebrations.
There is no bar seating referenced in Kava's setup — the venue runs on five tables, and the booking format is structured around tasting menus. Walk-in bar dining is not the model here. If a bar counter or drop-in format matters to you, Leña Marbella is a better fit.
The room has an urban aesthetic with deliberate design intent, and the tasting menu format signals a considered dining occasion. Dress neatly — this is not a beach-casual venue, but it is also not a white-tablecloth formal room. Think dinner-ready rather than dressed-up: clean, put-together, and appropriate for a five-table chef's restaurant in a €€€ price bracket.
At €€€ with a Michelin Plate, an OAD Top 500 Europe ranking, and a menu built around ingredients Alcalá sources and raises himself, the value case is strong for the category. The self-taught chef was named Revelation of the Year at Madrid Fusión 2019, which gives the cooking credentials beyond local reputation. For comparable spend, Skina has longer Michelin history — but Kava is the more interesting value proposition if you want a younger, less established room with a distinctive point of view.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
