Benalmádena Gastronomy Week Showcases Traditional Malaga Muscatel and Seafood Heritage Top regional chefs converge on Benalmádena Pueblo and the marina for an autumn culinary summit honouring indigenous mountain grapes and deep-sea catches. Forty Producers, One Week, Two Very Different Landscapes Benalmádena kicked off its autumn food calendar on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, with the launch of Benalmádena Gastronomy and Muscatel Heritage Week. The event stretches from the steep, whitewashed lanes of Benalmádena Pueblo down to the marina, pulling together more than forty independent restaurants, bodega cellars and small-scale food producers from across the municipality. For a town often associated with sunbed rows and package holidays, it's a deliberate attempt to put something older and less obvious on the table: the muscatel vine. The timing matters. Mid-October falls after the grape harvest further inland, which gives organisers fresh stock to work with and gives visitors a reason to come up from the beach. Residents who've lived here through a few of these autumn weeks will recognise the format, but this year's programme leans harder into the wine side of things than previous editions. Why Muscatel, and Why Now It's easy to forget, looking at the apartment blocks and golf courses, that the hills behind Benalmádena were once covered in terraced muscatel vines. That viticultural tradition largely migrated east towards the Axarquía and the Montes de Málaga, where steep, sun-baked slopes still produce the dry, sweet and naturally fermented white wines the region is known for. This week's festival brings those bottles back to the coast and puts them next to the seafood Benalmádena is better known for. Local sommeliers have put together tasting trails pairing specific wines with specific dishes rather than leaving diners to guess. Pan-seared red mullet comes with a reduced sweet wine glaze; there's a sea urchin paté sourced locally; and a cold almond soup, ajo blanco, arrives topped with peeled muscatel grapes rather than the usual melon. These aren't radical inventions so much as old Andalusian combinations given a slightly more polished presentation for festival week. Two Festivals in One Town The geography of Benalmádena works in the organisers' favour here, because the pueblo and the marina offer genuinely different experiences rather than the same stalls repeated twice. Up in the old village, family-run taverns are running tapas menus built around slow-cooked seafood stews and dry-aged Iberian pork, served alongside crisp coastal whites — the kind of food that's been cooked in those kitchens for generations, just packaged for festival visitors this week. Down at the marina, the mood is more theatrical. Waterfront pavilions host daily open-air cooking demonstrations led by chefs with Michelin recognition from across Málaga province, with a declared focus on sustainable sourcing. Much of the teaching centres on deep-sea whitefish species that rarely make it onto standard menus — fish landed daily at regional harbours but usually overlooked in favour of better-known catches. For home cooks among the expat community, these sessions are as much a practical lesson in sourcing and preparation as a show. What Visitors Need to Know The festival runs through Sunday, 18 October 2026. A tasting passport, available for five euros at local tourism offices, is the cheapest way to take part properly: it unlocks discounted tasting portions and wine pairings at every participating venue, and visitors who complete the full route go into a prize draw. Getting between the two festival zones is straightforward. Free electric shuttle buses run throughout the day, linking the beachfront promenade with the mountain village, so there's no need to drive or rely on taxis between tastings — useful given how much wine is involved. For foreign residents who've settled on the Costa del Sol but rarely venture beyond the resort circuit, this is as accessible an introduction to the region's older food culture as the calendar offers. It doesn't require advance booking for most venues, just the passport and a willingness to walk between the two very different parts of town. With the week running to Sunday, anyone planning a visit should aim for a weekday if they want to avoid the busier weekend crowds at the marina pavilions.