Taste 1973

Book a Wednesday or Thursday Table First; Here's Why

Taste 1973 is one of the hardest reservations in the Canary Islands right now. The restaurant operates Wednesday through Saturday, dinner only (7 PM to 11 PM), and with a 2024 Michelin star drawing international attention to what was already a well-regarded address inside Playa de las Américas' Hotel Villa Cortés, availability disappears fast. Your leading window: target Wednesday or Thursday, when weekend demand drops off and tables are marginally more accessible. Book at least three to four weeks out for a weekend slot; midweek, two weeks may suffice, but don't push it. There is no walk-in culture here.

What Taste 1973 Is

Inside the five-star Hotel Villa Cortés on Avenida Rafael Puig Lluvina, Taste 1973 is a tasting-menu-only restaurant built around one clear purpose: documenting and celebrating the culinary history of the Canary Islands. Every dish on the two menus, named Roque Guincho and Roque de Arona Hío, traces its origins to the archipelago. Each course arrives with an information card detailing the product used and its provenance, with individual dishes dedicated to specific islands in the chain. This is not fusion cooking or Continental technique with local garnish; the Canarian identity is, as Michelin's own assessors noted, present in every dish.

The kitchen is led by chef Diego Schattenhofer, an Argentine who has spent approximately two decades working in the Canary Islands. That tenure shows in the depth of the sourcing and the specificity of the historical research behind the menus. The team supporting him is genuinely unusual for a restaurant at this level: it includes marine biologists, neurologists, historians who have worked to recover the culinary heritage of the Guanche people, the indigenous inhabitants of the islands. The result is a tasting menu format that carries more intellectual weight than most of its price-tier peers in Spain.

Two dishes from the current programme have drawn particular attention from Michelin: a seafood rice with scarlet red prawns, a course listed as Thunnus thynnus; bluefin tuna, handled through the kitchen's noted dry-ageing approach to fish. Dry-aged fish is a technique that requires precise temperature control and timing, Taste 1973 has made it a house signature. If you are familiar with the approach from Japanese contexts, the Canarian application here is distinct in character. The cheese trolley, rolling out over 50 varieties of Canary Island cheese, closes the savoury sequence and functions as both a practical highlight and a lesson in how much the islands produce that rarely travels to the mainland.

The Room and the Experience

The restaurant sits within a luxury hotel property, which shapes the visual register of the room. The setting at Villa Cortés leans toward a colonial-meets-Moorish aesthetic that is consistent throughout the hotel. Within the dining space, the presentation is formal without being stiff: information cards accompany each course, the cheese trolley arrives tableside, service operates at a pace that suits a multi-course tasting format over several hours. For the Canary Islands specifically, there is no direct comparable at this level of culinary ambition within the immediate area. If you are travelling to Tenerife primarily for food, Taste 1973 is the table to prioritise. If you are already staying at Villa Cortés, booking dinner here on at least one night is a direct decision. For other dining on the island, El Lajar de Bello and Goxoa (Grills) offer strong alternatives at lower price points when you want something less structured. A broader view of the island's options is in our full Playa de las Américas restaurants guide.

Who Should Book

This restaurant is built for food-focused travellers who want a structured, research-backed tasting experience rather than a relaxed dinner. If you are visiting the Canary Islands and want to understand the islands' food culture at its most considered, two-plus hours at Taste 1973 will do more for that than any number of casual meals. It is well-suited to solo diners who want to eat at the bar or counter positions where interaction with the service team enriches the information-card format, more on that below. Groups of two to four who are comfortable with a long tasting format will find the pacing well-managed. It is not the right choice if you are looking for a quick dinner or a flexible à la carte experience.

On Counter and Bar Seating

Given the editorial angle assigned to this page, it is worth being direct about what counter or bar-adjacent seating adds at Taste 1973 specifically. The information-card format that accompanies each course is designed for dialogue: where did this fish come from, which island does this dish represent, what does the dry-ageing process look like. Seated at or near the kitchen service pass, that dialogue opens up in a way it cannot at a table in the middle of the room. For solo diners in particular, a counter position turns a tasting menu into something closer to a guided tutorial on Canarian food history. If the booking system gives you a choice of position, take the counter. The food is identical; the experience is richer.

Planning Your Visit

Service runs Wednesday to Saturday from 7 PM. The restaurant is closed Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, so factor that into your Tenerife itinerary. A tasting menu at this price tier in Spain typically runs two to three hours; plan your evening accordingly. Dress to match the five-star hotel context: smart casual at minimum, with most diners opting for something more formal. No phone or website is listed in our current data, so the most reliable booking route is directly through the Hotel Villa Cortés reception or via the hotel's online booking infrastructure. For everything else the area offers, see our guides to Playa de las Américas hotels, bars, wineries, and experiences.

How It Compares

See the comparison section below for how Taste 1973 sits against Spain's other leading creative tables.