Three generations keep Estepona’s Playa Bella restaurant alive after 54 years

Pepe Puertas still spends much of the day at Playa Bella. After 54 years, he knows many customers by name, knows what they like to eat and asks after their families. Some first came three decades ago and now bring their own children and grandchildren with them.

The photographs dotted around the restaurant bear witness to that continuity. One shows an American customer on his first visit, in 1976. He returned years later and posed again in front of the same façade, although the building had grown by then and so had he.

The restaurant marked its 54th anniversary this April. Pepe opened it in 1972, after five years working in Marbella, where he helped open El Pirata, one of the area’s big names in hospitality at the time. There, he met the chef with whom he decided to launch a new venture in Estepona.

Playa Bella started out as a modest place, with a small kitchen, a bar and a single dining room. Pepe’s wife, Mercedes Vargas, also played a key role in those early years, helping out in the restaurant and working in the kitchen when keeping the business afloat depended on the whole family’s daily effort.

Every year when the holidays came round, the family would use the time to extend part of the restaurant. One year they added a bit more to the dining room, the next another space. The restaurant grew at the same pace as its clientele, without losing the character it still has today.

“People come here as if it’s home,” says Pepe. In this case, the phrase is fairly literal, since much of the restaurant’s décor comes from his own house, and the flowers he uses to dress tables for birthdays and celebrations come from his garden. When a customer calls to mark a special date, all they need to say is: “Pepe, sort me out a nice table.” He takes care of the rest.

Playa Bella’s story now continues through three generations of the Puertas family. Working alongside Pepe is his son, Javi Puertas, who has been joined by Javi Puertas Jr, Javi’s son. In the kitchen is Rafa, Raquel’s son and the founder’s grandson.

The handover already feels natural, with the family sharing the day-to-day work and the knowledge built up over more than half a century. Javi Puertas Jr, who completed part of his training in Ireland and speaks fluent English, represents a new way of connecting with a clientele that is largely international. Rafa, meanwhile, helps keep the kitchen’s traditions alive from the stoves, in cooking that stands out precisely because it hasn’t needed to break with the past.

Pepe, for his part, seems in no hurry to retire. “I come because I like it,” he says. He’d rather be at the restaurant, chatting with diners, than sitting on the sofa in front of the television all afternoon. He jokes that he plans to carry on for another 20 years. Or 25, if needed.

“The customer is always right,” Pepe insists. The phrase sums up a restaurant used to adapting dishes, taking on very specific requests and remembering, for decades, the preferences of those who come back every season.

Playa Bella’s menu keeps that same spirit. At a time when many restaurants chase constant novelty, this is a place that still champions dishes that require skill, time and a well-established kitchen.

Rafael Salvador has been visiting the restaurant for around 20 years and rates its menu highly. “There are dishes that were disappearing from other restaurants, but Playa Bella still keeps up that classic cooking you don’t see so much anymore,” he says. Among his must-haves, he mentions sole meunière, turbot and John Dory with prawns in pil pil sauce.

Playa Bella’s menu opens with dishes such as aubergines stuffed with beef sirloin and gratinated with natural tomato sauce, homemade prawn croquettes in pil pil sauce, and gratinated spinach and seafood crepes. There’s also beef Stroganoff, a recipe rooted in classic international cuisine.

You can order Burgos black pudding with Padrón pepper, that brings back familiar flavours through a traditional preparation. For something more informal, the Playa Bella burger comes topped with a fried egg.

Meat takes centre stage on the menu. The 850-gramme beef T-bone, designed to share between two people, arrives at the table on a hot grill, served with potatoes. Among the fish dishes, the spinach-stuffed and gratinated salmon stands out

Playa Bella has become a place where different generations celebrate, remember and meet again.After 54 years, three generations of the Puertas family have served three generations of customers. Few restaurants can tell a story about the passage of time quite like Playa Bella can.