Arab Baths in Sevilla
In Seville, while walking around in the Jewish Quarter, or Barrio Santa Cruz, we came across what looked like a simple entrance to a restaurant. It was named San Marco and it had a large wooden door entrance tucked into an undescriptive arched doorway.
Entrance to San Marcos Restaurant - The Ancient Arab Bath House
We decided that we would have dinner there, we entered what was to our great surprise, an ancient Arab bath house, built in the 12th century.
What caught our eye was the sign that was embedded into the wall just to the left of the arch. Simple in its design and message, but the interior yielded some great surprises. The sign said “Banos Arabes SX11” or “Arab Bath House 12th Century”.
Sign at the Entrance Stating That it is From the 12th Century
It had been converted to the restaurant some years ago, but the original Arab baths and old architecture from the 1100s was still intact inside the building.
To top it off, the food there was absolutely a treasure. Pastas, seafood, paella, beautify fillets of beef, extraordinary appetizers, and breath-taking wines!
The Maître d’ escorted us to a very cozy table in the back corner of the restaurant where we could see the entire interior of the ancient bath house.
We started with some wonderful tapas of calamares (deep fried squid rings), some fresh vegetables, lightly grilled with some olive oil and sea salt sprinkled on them.
We also ordered a wonderful bottle of Tinto red wine from the Ribera Del Duero region, a 2009 Pesquera, which was absolutely perfect. We actually went through 3 bottles as we worked our way through the appetizers, dinner and desert. All in all, it was a fabulous 2 ½ hour dinner that was thoroughly enjoyed by all of us!
Wonderful Bottle of Pesquera Wine
It turns out that we weren’t the only ones that enjoyed ourselves at San Marcos. A few months before our dinner, the actor Tom Cruise stopped by and enjoyed a dinner there as can be seen from the photograph the restaurant displays on the entrance table as you walked into the restaurant.
Picture of Tom Cruz
We were told that he was there with a crew scouting out locations for a movie he was interested in making!
