Two Covers in Nerja

We had played in Málaga the day before, and came along the coast to Nerja for a night off. There was no padel that day; we went kayaking instead.

Dinner that night was at OCULTO, at number 11 Calle Castilla Pérez. From the street there is no sign of it beyond a discreet plaque, and there is a keypad. The code for the keypad comes by WhatsApp ahead of the booking, so you arrive with the way in already on your phone.

Inside is a second threshold. A curtained doorway opens onto the room itself, and the room is below you. When we came through, the curtain parted onto a staircase going down, a server was crossing the floor below, and at the far end of the room the wine wall was glowing. It got busier as the evening went on.

The room is dark stone, with brass and bronze in the fittings. A chain-mail curtain hangs under the OCULTO wordmark and divides one part of the room from another. The wine wall runs from floor to ceiling and is lit from beneath: mostly Ribera del Duero, with Pesquera in quantity, cava, and a run of rosados. The seating is split between banquette tables in mustard and teal velvet and a long marble counter that faces the open kitchen. We had a table. Gold cutlery, black-glazed stoneware.

The receipt has us at table 13, two covers. It lists six dishes, each with its price, and two aguas con gas, and it carries two lines at €0.00: an aperitivo de bienvenida at the start of the meal and a cortesía de la casa at the end. It comes to €103.85, and a note on it, in Spanish and in English, says that the tip is not included. We paid for our dinner, the two of us, the bill as it came. The Alborán covers its own costs.

The Tiraditos de Pez Limón con Trufa, at €26.90, is thin slices of amberjack with natural truffle, ponzu sauce, yuzu, truffle mayo and tempura shavings, with tender garlic shoots, on a long black oval plate. The fish was so soft. We thought the truffle might overpower it, but it just matched so well, and there were big, thick shavings of truffle.

We then moved on to the Lingote de Foie Explosivo, €15.95: foie on a gold-dusted plate, over a pool of white chocolate cream, with a physalis on either side, and on top what the menu calls double raspberry and chocolate popping candy. You could hear the crackle inside your mouth as you were eating. It was very, very decadent.

We had two of the Bao de Calamares a la Madrileña, at €7.95 each. It takes Madrid's fried-calamari sandwich and moves it into a steamed bao bun: calamari in crisp panko, and a ricotta cream with lime.

The Mini Taco de Solomillo de Ternera y Perlas de Hierbabuena goes on the bill as "Taco Solomillo", at €19.50. Crisp taco shells hold oven-roasted beef tenderloin, topped with green spheres that look exactly like grapes and are built from mint. It is a clever bit of trompe l'oeil. The name on the menu tells you as much, perlas de hierbabuena; the plate tells you grapes.

The two puddings were €9.00 each. The Torrija de Pistacho y Kataifi is a torrija soaked in vanilla, with a pistachio cream, kataifi pastry, pink sugar pearls and a scoop of ice cream. A torrija is a very traditional, simple dish, the one you would have at Easter: effectively bread and egg, cooked off. This takes it to that next level, and for me it was absolutely to die for.

The Snicker Oculto is peanut ice cream and milk chocolate under an Italian meringue that has been torched, with caramel and peanut crumble scattered across the plate. It is their own take on a Snickers bar, all of it done very fresh.

The bao and the taco were good, but the first two, the tiraditos and the foie, were at such a high level that it was very difficult to maintain that.

How this was reported: written from the author's own notes and photographs from the evening, and from the itemised receipt. Dishes are named as the menu and the bill name them.