The Chiringuitos Route: the whole Málaga coastline, espeto by espeto

If there is one place where you understand that in Málaga eating is culture, it is a chiringuito. The boat beached on the sand, the olive-wood fire, the cane of skewered sardines held with the steady pulse of someone who has done it all their life: the espeto is heritage, and its home is the shore.

The city of Málaga has fourteen kilometres of coastline and fifteen official beaches, from the mouth of the Guadalhorce to the Totalán stream. This route walks them from west to east: it starts at Sacaba Beach and La Misericordia, crosses San Andrés and Huelin, skirts the port to La Malagueta and La Caleta, pauses at the Baños del Carmen and passes through the seafaring quarters of Pedregalejo and El Palo.

And it does not end at El Candado, as people tend to believe. Then come the Peñón del Cuervo — the beach of the moragas, with fifteen brick barbecues and, since not long ago, a chiringuito of its own — and, at the very end, La Araña: a 19th-century fishing quarter beneath the cement factory, with three eating houses that have served the best fish around for decades. There, at the Totalán stream, Málaga ends.

You do not need to do it all, or in order. Just pick a stretch, walk the promenade and sit down wherever it smells of woodsmoke. Málaga does the rest.