Puerto Banús Seafood Guide: Fish by Weight and 2026 Prices

Puerto Banús is a marina of 915 berths built for yachts, not trawlers, so every fish on its menus arrives by van: from Marbella's own fish auction at La Bajadilla, and from the ports of Huelva, Cádiz and Almería. As an agency that books Marbella escorts into these dining rooms most weeks, the complaint we hear most is a whole sea bass ordered without asking its weight. The best seafood near Puerto Banús is a short taxi ride up the Golden Mile or on the beach beside the port rather than on the quay, and on 2026 menus whole fish costs €75–€120 a kilo, with red prawns at €22 per 100 grams.

For everyday bookings across town, our page on escorts in Marbella has the rates and the companions.

Where Is the Good Seafood Near Puerto Banús?

Mostly not on the quay. The fish kitchens we recommend are on the Golden Mile (Lobito de Mar, Sea Grill at Puente Romano, La Milla on Nagüeles beach) or on the beach beside the port (Mistral Beach). Bar Altamirano in Marbella's old town is the plain, local benchmark.

A Marina With No Fishing Fleet

Puerto José Banús takes boats up to 50 metres, and none of them fish for a living. Marbella's working fishing port is La Bajadilla, east of the old town, and its auction, the rula, supplies bars such as Altamirano, which says its fish travels from the rula to the plate in a matter of hours. Good menus name the rest, from Garrucha in Almería to Huelva. Sea Grill names red mullet from Marbella and sea bass from Punta Umbría. A menu that names its ports knows its suppliers. Altamirano, cooking family recipes on Plaza Altamirano since 1985, is our yardstick: eat the same species there and on the Golden Mile, and the difference on the bill is the room and the postcode.

Five Seafood Kitchens Compared

How Does Ordering Fish by Weight Work?

Whole fish and most shellfish are sold by weight: per kilo for fish, often per 100 grams for prawns. You choose the fish raw, it is weighed, and the bill is weight multiplied by price. S/M on a menu means según mercado, market price; ask for the figure before anything goes to the kitchen.

Per Kilo, Per 100 Grams and S/M

Lobito de Mar's October 2026 menu shows all three conventions. Whole fish by the kilo: sea bass in a black-salt crust €82, urta from Cádiz €95, wild turbot €120. Shellfish by the 100 grams: red prawns from Garrucha €22, Sanlúcar langostinos €20, langoustines €25, XXL carabineros from Huelva €30. Red mullet from Marbella, €9.50 per 100 grams, is €95 a kilo. A price per 100 grams looks modest until you multiply it by ten, which is precisely why prawns are priced that way. S/M means market price: legitimate, but the number must be said before you order.

The Arithmetic for Two

Plan on 400 to 500 grams of whole fish per person, weighed raw; head, bones and skin go back to the kitchen. A sea bass for two therefore weighs 1 to 1.2 kilos, and at €82 a kilo the 1.2-kilo fish is €98.40 before anything else arrives. Add 250 grams of red prawns at €22 per 100 grams (€55) and the starter has cost more than half the fish. At Mistral Beach the fish of the day is €75 a kilo, so a 1.1-kilo sea bream comes to €82.50. Do the multiplication at the table; nobody minds.

Four Questions Before It Goes to the Kitchen

¿Cuánto pesa? (how much does it weigh?) and ¿A cuánto está el kilo? (what is the price per kilo?) are the two that matter. Ask to see the fish, and say how many people it must feed. Then read the small print: Lobito de Mar charges €4 a head for bread and olive oil, and Mistral Beach €3.20 a head for bread and butter, plus €1 per dish and per drink served on the sand. None of this is a trick; it is printed. If a bill does not match the menu, ask calmly for the hoja de reclamaciones, the official complaint form every Andalusian business must keep.

What to Order: Local Fish and Named Shellfish

Start with what was landed nearby: red mullet from Marbella, boquerones, concha fina from Málaga. Then the named Andalusian shellfish: red prawns from Garrucha, quisquillas from Motril, carabineros from Huelva. For a whole fish to share, urta, the Cádiz bream, is the order we suggest most often.

Whole Fish: Urta, Lubina, Rodaballo

Urta is a large, firm bream of the Cádiz coast, the fish behind the famous dish from Rota, and it holds together on the grill. Lubina is sea bass; ask whether it is wild (salvaje) or farmed, because the farmed fish costs a fraction and the menu does not always say. Rodaballo is turbot, €120 a kilo wild at Lobito de Mar. Dorada (gilt-head bream) and pargo (snapper) are the safe middle. Mistral Beach rotates sea bass, sea bream and turbot as its fish of the day; ask which one came in that morning.

Shellfish: Learn the Origin Names

Gamba roja de Garrucha is the deep-water red prawn of Almería, best simply grilled; suck the head, that is where the flavour is. Carabineros are the large scarlet prawns, Huelva's being the reference. Quisquillas de Motril are tiny, sweet and served cold (€44 a plate at Lobito de Mar). Cigalas are langoustines; langostinos de Sanlúcar arrive boiled. Concha fina is Málaga's smooth clam, eaten raw with lemon or grilled, €7 each. If the menu gives an origin, the kitchen is buying by name; a plate of anonymous "prawns" is often frozen and imported.

Boquerones, and Why Real Chanquetes Are Gone

Fried boquerones (fresh anchovies) are Málaga's emblem, and Rincón de la Victoria, just east of the city, holds an annual Día del Boquerón Victoriano in their honour; Lobito de Mar borrows the name for its €14 plate, and Mistral Beach charges €24 for its fried anchovies. Chanquetes are another story: fishing and selling the true chanquete has been banned since 1988, and what usually appears under that name is chanquete chino, an Asian fish shipped frozen. Lobito's chanquetes de bogavante, a €30 lobster dish with fried eggs, plays on the name. For the fire-grilled sardine, our chiringuito guide covers the espeto.

How Should Your Fish Be Cooked?

Match the method to the fish. Large white fish suit the salt crust or the charcoal grill; small fish and squid are fried; firm fish such as urta take the Cádiz treatment with tomato and peppers, a la roteña. Ask for a la espalda if you want the fish opened flat and grilled with garlic oil.

Salt Crust, Charcoal and A la Espalda

A la sal means the whole fish is buried in coarse salt and baked; the crust is cracked at the table and the flesh comes out moist and barely salted. Bar Altamirano charges €10 a kilo extra for it, and Lobito de Mar's sea bass comes in a black-salt crust. A la brasa is charcoal, Sea Grill's signature; a la plancha is the hot steel griddle, which suits fillets and red mullet. A la espalda splits the fish along the back and grills it open with garlic and oil, which is how Mistral Beach serves sea bass.

Fried, and A la Roteña

Andalusian frying uses flour and very hot oil, and done properly the fish arrives dry and crisp: fried squid at €24 and a fry of baby squid and soft-shell crab at €27 on Mistral Beach's 2026 menu. A la roteña comes from Rota, across the bay from Cádiz: the fish is baked with tomato, onion and peppers, and urta is the classic choice. Sea Grill lists it beside charcoal, salt, frying and crudo. For rice to follow the fish, our paella and rice guide explains how to tell a pan cooked to order from one reheated.

Raw Fish and the Freezing Rule

Spanish law requires any fish served raw, marinated or salted, from boquerones en vinagre to ceviche and tartare, to be frozen first: at −20 °C for at least 24 hours or −35 °C for at least 15 hours, to kill anisakis larvae. The rule sits in Real Decreto 1021/2022, in force since 22 December 2022, and restaurants must tell customers, which is why Lobito de Mar and Mistral Beach both print it on their menus. The rule covers fish, squid and octopus, not prawns or clams, so a frozen-and-thawed sea bass tartare is the law working, not a lazy kitchen.

What Does a Seafood Dinner Cost Near Banús in 2026?

On 2026 menus, whole fish runs €75 to €120 a kilo, red prawns €220 a kilo and XXL carabineros €300. Our working budget for two sharing shellfish, a whole fish and a mid-priced bottle on the Golden Mile is €220 to €300; a beach lunch of fried fish and a paella is closer to €150–€180.

2026 Prices From the Menus

Why a Restaurant Kilo Costs What It Does

The agriculture ministry's 2025 food consumption report puts household purchases at 17.80 kilos of fish and seafood per person, and the average price paid for fresh fish at €10.98 a kilo. A Golden Mile kitchen charging €82 for sea bass is not seven times greedier: it buys wild, top-grade fish, loses close to half the weight as head, bones and skin, and cooks and serves it on a terrace. What runs a bill away is rarely the fish: it is shellfish ordered by the 100 grams with no weight agreed, lobster at €36 per 250 grams, and extras such as a €30 caviar beurre blanc. Choose one luxury, not four.

Lunch on the Sand or Dinner on the Golden Mile?

Lunch for the beach kitchens: La Milla serves Wednesday to Sunday, 13:00 to 17:00, and nothing at night. Dinner for the Golden Mile: Sea Grill takes its last booking at 23:00, and Lobito de Mar's bar runs non-stop from 13:00 to 01:00. Bar Altamirano closes on Mondays.

The Long Lunch at La Milla

La Milla is an old chiringuito on Nagüeles beach rebuilt as a proper restaurant, and the Michelin Guide lists it for an Andalusian ceviche with red prawns and a dry rice with clams and green sauce. Its kitchen opens at 13:00 and closes at 17:00, Wednesday to Sunday, with sunbeds from 10:00, so this is a lunch that starts with a swim. Book online and allow three hours. For evenings with your feet near the water, our beachfront restaurants guide covers dinner timings and the best stretches of beach.

Dinner at Sea Grill or Lobito de Mar

Sea Grill opens daily from 13:00 to 23:30 inside the Puente Romano resort, with the day's catch on ice at a marble bar; you choose the fish, then the method. Lobito de Mar, Dani García's fish restaurant, opened on the Golden Mile in 2017 and keeps its bar going non-stop until 01:00, so it also suits a late, unplanned plate of prawns. Both fill on summer weekends. Our Puente Romano guide covers the resort's other kitchens if you want a drink before or after.

Booking a Seafood Dinner With a Companion

Book it as a dinner date, a minimum of three hours and so from €900, or as an hourly outcall to Puerto Banús or the Golden Mile at €300 an hour. Tell us the restaurant, the table time and whether it is lunch on the sand or dinner on the Mile, and we match the companion to the setting.

Which Format Suits the Meal

A La Milla lunch runs long by design, so a dinner-date booking by daylight fits it better than two hourly slots. An evening at Sea Grill followed by a drink on the quay suits the same format, and our Puerto Banús escorts page shows who is free near the port. The price is the same at weekends and in July and August, though the tables fill faster. Linda, our Spanish companion, will ask the waiter the weight before you have to. If plans change, a dinner date can be moved or cancelled free of charge until 24 hours before; our cancellation guide sets out the windows for every other booking type.

Paying for the Evening

You pay her directly before the booking starts: cash, bank transfer (to her or to the agency) or crypto, Bitcoin included. A dinner date booked in advance carries a 25% deposit by transfer or crypto, with the balance paid to her at the start; a same-day booking needs none. Our payment guide explains each method. A tip is optional. The restaurant bill is yours, and so is her taxi to the table, so choose the fish with the arithmetic above in mind, and send us the restaurant and the time so that her arrival is timed to the reservation.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does fish by weight work in Spanish restaurants?

The menu gives a price per kilo for whole fish, or per 100 grams for prawns. You choose the fish raw, it is weighed, and the bill is the weight multiplied by that price. S/M means market price. Ask the weight and the total before it is cooked; good waiters expect the question.

How much do red prawns cost near Puerto Banús in 2026?

At Lobito de Mar on the Golden Mile, grilled red prawns from Garrucha cost €22 per 100 grams in October 2026, which is €220 a kilo, and XXL carabineros from Huelva €30 per 100 grams. A shared portion of 200 to 250 grams therefore costs €44 to €55.

Are there good seafood restaurants on the Puerto Banús quay itself?

The quay is better for the view than for fish. Puerto Banús is a leisure marina with no fishing fleet, and the kitchens we recommend for seafood are on the Golden Mile, on the beaches beside the port, or in Marbella's old town, all within a short taxi ride.

Why does the menu say the fish has been frozen?

Real Decreto 1021/2022 requires fish served raw, marinated or salted, such as boquerones en vinagre or ceviche, to be frozen first at −20 °C for 24 hours or −35 °C for 15 hours to kill anisakis larvae. Restaurants must inform customers, so the notice signals compliance, not poor quality.