Restaurant with History
Our restaurant is located in one of the noblest buildings in Marbella’s Old Town. The house was built in 1555 in Plaza de los Naranjos and it is an example of the late Gothic Mudejar style, where still remains the medieval conservatism on its facade characteristics.
There is a balcony with central door composed by an arch with columns at its sides on the main facade made of sandstone (typical of the area), which starts at the height of the imposts. There is also an upper frame suspended and cut on the stone. Both hairnets were decorated with candelabrums. On its sides, there are two little alcoves and two identical badges, but with different texture and colour and they are beside the facade and not cut in the stone as the rest of the ornaments. On the top floor there are a little gallery of arches with ornaments and relief, which is supported on plinths and columns with capitals.
The interpretation of badges composed by a desert with a castle, thirteen stars, six lis flowers and an eagle could be related to the family Salazar. This family of scribes, as Rodrigo Fernández de Salazar, of councillors, as Lázaro de Salazar on the second half of 16th century, and Juan de Salazar on the 17th century and his children the Pérez de Salazar, and among them stood out Miguel Francisco Gil de Salazar, who was lawyer and major. All these noble people lived in this same square and in the street Calle Nueva and in the new town of the fortress.
Therefore, it is very difficult to say which family owned the house because, for example, Juan Durango, also councillor, who Lázaro de Salazar called in the books “my brother”. Moreover, Durango was a relative of the Villegas family because he was married with one of the sisters, and the Villegas family owned a house near the church of Santiago. On the other hand, the division of the badges is a sign of relationship; therefore, the presence of other noble last names would not be strange because it could not be revealed. (*)
(*) Information from the book ‘El Centro Histórico de Marbella. Arquitectura y urbanismo’, by Francisco Javier Moreno.