Venturing a bit out of your comfort zone is never a bad idea, especially when it comes to food!
Last weekend happened to be another case of ‘where should we eat tonight‘ and a quick search on google maps uncovered a few options (I never use Tripadvisor for restaurant recommendations).
Casa Beirut is a Lebanese restaurant at St Rafael Square where I often walk but never actually tried it. Most of the places around the square were an utter disappointment (apart from the newly opened and Finnish-owned kebab place), so I didn’t hold my hopes high.
I’m very excited to say my predictions were wrong!
I’m not an expert on Lebanese food, but the selection of tapas and many vegetarian options got me excited. In fact, there were too many to choose from!
Some of the items on the menu seemed quite overpriced to me, especially paying over 7 euros for a small plate of hummus seems like a stretch a bit too far in a city like Fuengirola.
Even though the tapas prices seemed a bit high at first glance, they did correspond with the portion size. So with a selection of a few tapas, you will happily feed the whole family and will be too full to finish them all.
But let’s dive into more details here.
The Restaurant
The restaurant sits next to the main road that goes through Rafael square and has a decent size terrace.
I think they missed the mark with the decor. A bit of an authentic feel would make the restaurant feel a lot more welcoming and add to the dining experience.
The decor is very neutral and if you didn’t have a glance at the menu, you wouldn’t know you’re sitting in a Lebanese restaurant.
The Menu
The menu has a very large selection of tapas ranging from 5.50 euros up to 7.50 euros. Some of these I didn’t even recognize and I’m super excited to try more of them on the next visit.
I was very happy with the selection of vegetarian options and also to see halloumi on the menu (brings back memories from Cyprus!).
I cannot comment on the meaty selection or quality of the meaty dishes, but if what we had was an indication of quality, I think you won’t be disappointed.
I didn’t take a photo of the menu options and its hard to find it online, so I will rectify this on my next visit.
The Food
We came in hungry so ordered quite a few things from the menu.
What we had:
- grilled halloumi – very generous portion we were struggling to finish
- hummus – this was delicious too, just a shame it wasn’t served with a proper pitta bread
- filled pastry with spinach and pomegranate – something I haven’t tried before, it was fairly sour so after eating one you don’t feel like having more, but they are great for sharing in a party of four.
- falafel – another generous portion of falafel, it was surprisingly moist inside and very crispy on the outside, served with a small dip (wish they added more of it!)
- fresh salad with pomegranate – this was delicious, and I loved the dressing on it!
Everything was served with a small side salad and we also got a basket of bread. I would have preferred pitta bread, but the flatbread was nice too!
The food was beautifully presented and tasted fresh and delicious!
Below are photos of what we had – I will add more when we go for our next visit and try more things!
If you would like to visit the restaurant, I have popped their location and details at the end of the post.
Casa Beirut, Fuengirola
Location: Plaza San Rafael Edif. D. Alberto, local 8 y 9, 29640 Fuengirola
Reservations: 951002599
Menu: I did not find their menu online, but there are some photos of it on Tripadvisor profile
Opening times: 1.30pm to 11pm, Monday to Sunday
