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Don Corleone is a brand new Italian restaurant located on the small commercial centre adjacent to Oasis Payagayo, near the roundabout which leads from Corralejo to La Oliva. The restaurant is, in fact, immediately behind the, one presumes, soon to be opened, huge locale reserved for (yes, yet another) Riu Parfum shop. One has to walk behind this locale to the rear and the restaurant is the only locale which is open at present. Underneath this complex is the new bowling alley, fast food outlet and huge British bar, all opening soon.
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Don Corleone
The restaurant is pretty enormous with
a large number of dark wood tables both inside and out on an equally
large terrace surrounding the restaurant and the tables are very
well spaced out – no earwigging on your neighbours´ conversations
here. When Barfly (yet again) and I arrived at about 9.30 p.m. on a
Saturday night there was a large table of 10 people, and others of
7, 4 and 5 with more parties (of large numbers) arriving throughout
the evening until gone well past 11.00 p.m. The clientele was
predominantly Spanish and Italian with no tourists as yet (as they
are up until now unaware of the restaurant´s existence – although I
imagine the residents of Oasis Papagayo have been informed of its
opening). The restaurant has a spectacular pitched wooden beamed
ceiling, a huge expansive wooden bar with an enormous stainless
steel kitchen behind it which houses an equally enormous wood
burning pizza oven covered in stone.
There are two floor-to-ceiling handpainted murals
in the restaurant – one of an Italian village ceiling with rustic
houses and bougainvillea (very pretty) and another of a cocktail
party scene which, if carefully studied, has a number of local
personalities including the owner of the restaurant, Massimo in the
forefront. The restaurant was painted by, I think, a local Dutchman
who calls himself Pablo. Talking of the muy charmant Massimo, he
used to own the Mediterráneo restaurant in Corralejo town and before
that the Il Fortino Italian restaurant which is now The Stables bar.
He and his
equally charming 80 year father now reside here. His father,
Guiseppe, in his time must have been a real ladies´man as, every
time he sees me, he welcomes me like a long lost family member with
hugs and kisses. To me, he resembles a typical old school Mafiosa
type. 
The menu is very typically Italian
with a selection of starters with both a meat or fish carpaccio,
pasta dishes with a choice of pastas and varying sauces, a huge
selection of pizzas and an assortment of meat and fish (including
meat cooked on volcanic stone). In fact, the menu does have a slight
similarity to his old restaurant´s menu including his Ciccio and
Super Ciccio for starters which is a pizza based garlic bread with
either just garlic or added tomato – which is less filling that the
doughy garlic bread served in other restaurants. Mel and I chose a
bottle of Bardolino – a very smooth red wine served in our favourite
large wine glasses (why does wine taste nicer in these huge
glasses?) and we were going to opt for the antipasto variado to
share but Massimo managed to talk me into having the bresaola (raw
beef) and Mel chose a salad with mozzarella, rocket and tomato.
Mel´s dish had a healthy serving of fresh rocket which she and I
thought was the best we had tasted – it had that strong peppery
taste to it and the leaves were fresh, shiny and abundant (I´m sure
if The Ed reads this he will be wondering how anyone can talk about
food in so much detail!). My bresaola was also served with a lovely
fresh lime, the juice of which I squeezed over a generous number of
meat slices. Mid-way through the starters I toyed with ordering a
Ciccio bread but could not manage to get any waiter´s attention.
This was not a slight on the staff but I think that, in the short
time they have been open (approx. 2 or 3 week) they were not
expecting such a large number of customers. Massimo was waiting on
tables as well as a very hardworking but equally polite and friendly
waiter and waitress. Anyway, the lack of carbo helped my
waistline.
For our main courses we chose two pasta
dishes – Mel opted for just a spaghetti Bolognese (called an
Emiliana on the menu) as she said that a really good Italian should
produce an exquisite spag bol and I chose the Cartoccio Marinera
Blanca with fettucine which had a sauce of white wine, mussels,
prawns and squid. Both the dishes were served in fairly smallish
portions (which suited Mel to a tee) and mine was served in an
aluminium foil shaped swan (which they used to serve in Il Fortino).
Both were excellent dishes and I sampled Mel´s leftovers so I got
enough grub in the end! Mel commented on the excellent quality of
her Bolognese sauce although she thought her pasta was a little bit
past al dente – tasted OK to me! Although sufficiently replete, I
succumbed to a dessert after enquiring whether their chocolate
mousse was sin or con leche. I was pleased to hear that it was most
definitely sin and was served very artily on a large plate – it
definitely was the richest chocolate mousse I have tasted since
being in Fuerte. Mel sampled a little with the raffia biscuit which
adorned the dish and also exclaimed of its excellent quality. It
really was a “died and gone to heaven” moment eating that
mousse!
Returning now to Mr Mafiosa,
Guiseppe, both he and Massimo are accomplished artists and the
previous restaurant was adorned with paintings by the two of them.
When Guiseppe welcomed us on this occasion he brought out a
selection of his small handpainted pictures of flowers, plants,
boats, shellfish and other still life objects in which we politely
showed great interest. He then mentioned that he handpainted fans
which we obviously had to ask to see – we were talked into buying
one each at €10 a piece. After our meal, however, he obviously
forgot that he had shown us his handiwork and produced his pictures
yet again for us to see – bless him. He is an extremely fit and
healthy old boy for his age (he obviously spreads Olivo on his
bread!).
Our meal came to a very respectable €58 and we
gave a €6 tip. Massimo asked us if we knew any good waiters to
employ as, by the time the restaurant is well known around town, he
will need a good few more waiting staff.