Michelin-starred chef with restaurants in Ronda and Malaga to launch new venture in Sotogrande

Top Spanish chef Benito Gómez is starting the year strong. Hot on the heels of the opening of Tragatá Málaga just six months ago and the upcoming refurbishment of Ronda's Bardal with two Michelin stars, he will soon add a new challenge to his culinary and entrepreneurial skillset: Dalmar, which will be the flagship restaurant of the five-star hotel resort Fairmont La Hacienda Costa del Sol. With it, the luxury hotel chain of Fairmont Hotels & Resorts is making its debut on the Spanish coast. To be precise, it is in La Alcaidesa, next door to Sotogrande in Cadiz province.

And that is where Benito Gómez will be. The chef is in charge of running Dalmar, the main restaurant of this new hotel complex that will open its doors at the end of this week. In the meantime, the Catalan chef, who is based in Ronda, continues to finalise the new restaurant concept, which the Fairmont says will offer a dinner service from Tuesday to Saturday and will have an open kitchen and a grill that will allow the chef to "delight [guests] with local seafood from Malaga and Cadiz and the tender Retinto [beef] meat."

We have grown accustomed to a certain lack of detail from Gómez when starting up his other projects and the same goes for this one - he prefers not to reveal many more details. He'll be cooking up the finishing touches right up until the place opens, and even once it's open. He only states that it will be somewhere between the more casual side of his Tragatá bar and the formal side of Bardal. However, above all, "it will be along the same lines that we always strive to offer, fundamentally, a well-made cuisine", says this holder of two Michelin stars. He says he had a good feeling about this project and basically took the plunge because he liked the proposal. He is motivated by challenges.

Now he is fretting about organising himself well to get it off the ground, getting it bedded in and then being able to focus on the renovation of his Ronda restaurant Bardal, which is expected to happen some time in the summer. After ruling out a move to a nearby bodega, the chef will tackle the remodelling of the restaurant that holds two Michelin stars. He says that it will not be a radical change, but it will certainly be noticeable, especially in the kitchen. In his opinion the refurb is necessary as the facilities have hardly been renovated in nearly 30 years. Until then, he will continue with this growth plan that last July led him to open a twin version of Ronda's Tragatá bar in Malaga city. For the first time ever Gómez' most informal and rogue-ish version of his hospitality businesses left Ronda to set up the same type of bar in the capital of the Costa del Sol.

So, once more this restaurateur leaves the mountains of Ronda, and even Malaga province, to handle this new project with the Fairmont chain in Cadiz province. The resort will have four other restaurant areas, including the beach club, where you can even try a contemporary take on the traditional dish of chargrilled 'espetos' sardines served on a skewer.

In total there will be 213 rooms, suites and private villas inspired by a traditional Andalusian village. The perfect fit, therefore, for this Dalmar experience run by Benito & Co. We say it like this because actually he never speaks in the first person singular either - he prefers to use 'us' and 'we' when talking about his business.