A Traditional Sunday Roast with a Mediterranean Twist

A Delicious Sunday Menu

Sunday Lunch at El Oceano.  A tradition not to be missed!  Featuring live music all afternoon, Sundays at El Oceano are almost legendary!  It is, without doubt, our busiest day with many booking weeks in advance to get a table.  The food is perfect, the surroundings charming and the afternoon entertainment is the best you’ll find on the Costa.  All in all, Sunday afternoons are best spent at the El Oceano Beachfront Restaurant.

Live entertainment from 3 piece house band, Monkey Tennis, from 2-4.30, followed by Frankie B Soul & Motown, until 7pm.

It is strongly recommended that you book as early as you can.  During busy times of the year, this can sometimes mean weeks – if not months – in advance.

Your traditional Sunday lunch, right by the Ocean.

The Best Sunday on the Costa del Sol - No Doubt!

There are plenty of places on the Costa del Sol where you can get a Sunday lunch. There is, as far as we're aware, only one place where you can get the El Oceano Sunday Experience — and the difference between the two things is considerable.

The Sunday Experience has been a fixture of the El Oceano week for many years. It has its own loyal following, its own regulars who book the same table at the same time weeks and sometimes months in advance, and its own particular atmosphere that builds from the moment the first guests arrive and doesn't let up until the last notes of the evening fade away. It is, without question, the busiest and most celebrated day of the El Oceano week — and the guests who have experienced it will tell you, with very little prompting, that it's one of the best ways to spend a Sunday anywhere on the coast.

What makes it so good? It's a combination of things, and the combination matters. The food alone would make it worth coming for. The entertainment alone would make it worth coming for. The setting alone — a beachfront restaurant with panoramic sea views, right on the Mediterranean — would make it worth coming for. The fact that all three of those things happen simultaneously, in a single long, celebratory afternoon, is what turns a very good Sunday lunch into something genuinely memorable.

The Menu

The Sunday menu at El Oceano is built around the classic Sunday roast — a format that the British guests who have long been among the hotel's most loyal visitors feel an understandable affection for, and one that the kitchen has elevated considerably beyond the standard. The beef is Prime Fillet of Galician beef, served with roast potatoes, seasonal vegetables, and a proper Yorkshire pudding. The lamb is Roast Rump, cooked with the same care and attention. The chicken is a Roasted and Stuffed Breast with sage and onion stuffing and chipolata. These are not hotel-banquet versions of Sunday roast dishes — they're the product of a kitchen that takes real pride in everything it produces, and they show.

Beyond the roasts, the menu offers a Grilled Fillet of Salmon with creamed spinach and puff pastry, a deeply satisfying beer-battered Fish 'n' Chips with hand-cut chips and mushy peas, and the El Oceano Curry Club — a spread of authentic Indian dishes including pilau rice, Bombay potato, vegetable samosa, onion bhaji, and poppadom that has developed a devoted following of its own. Starters include a King Prawn Cocktail Martini, a Chilled Roulade of Crab and Salmon, a Crispy Thai Fish Cake, and a Leek and Cheese Filo Parcel, among others. Desserts — Apple Crumble, Sticky Toffee Pudding, Chocolate Praline Mille Feuille, Lemon Meringue Tarte — are produced with the same commitment to quality as everything that precedes them.

A daily vegetarian option is prepared by the kitchen and available on request. Gluten-free and other dietary requirements can be accommodated with advance notice — please mention your needs when making your reservation.

Two courses are priced at €45. Three courses at €55. For the quality, the setting, and everything that surrounds the meal, it represents exceptional value.

The Entertainment

The food is the foundation of the Sunday Experience. The entertainment is what makes it an event.

From 2pm, the Ocean Room and the wider restaurant come alive with Monkey Tennis — El Oceano's resident Sunday band, a three-piece outfit with a deserved reputation for setting exactly the right tone for a long, celebratory Sunday afternoon.

Monkey Tennis have a quality that the very best function and restaurant bands share: the ability to read a room and respond to it. They build the afternoon with skill and genuine musical ability, creating an atmosphere that encourages people to relax, enjoy themselves, and — as the afternoon progresses — occasionally get up and dance. They play through until 4.30pm and they are, consistently, a highlight of the week.

From approximately 4pm, the legendary Frankie B takes over. Frankie B is a name that means something specific and wonderful to anyone who has spent time at El Oceano — a soul and Motown performer of real quality and genuine stage presence, whose set covers the great songs of that era with the kind of conviction that comes from truly loving the music. Soul, Motown, classic R&B — the songs everyone knows, performed by someone who does them proper justice. The atmosphere in the restaurant when Frankie B is in full flow is something that is genuinely difficult to describe to someone who hasn't experienced it. Warm, celebratory, joyful, and frequently irresistible — the dancing floor fills, the glasses are raised, and the afternoon takes on a quality that makes you glad, in a very specific way, that you decided to come.

Frankie B plays through until around 7pm, at which point DJ Scruffy takes the reins for those who aren't quite ready for the afternoon to end. By this point the Sunday Experience has been running for five hours, the restaurant has delivered food and service of genuine quality, and the atmosphere has been built and sustained by three distinct performers across the full arc of the afternoon.

It is, by any measure, a serious entertainment offering for a Sunday lunch. And yet it never feels overwhelming or out of proportion — the music enhances the meal and the afternoon rather than competing with it. Conversation flows. The food is given the attention it deserves. The entertainment adds a dimension of enjoyment that makes the experience feel celebratory rather than merely pleasant.

The Setting

The Sunday Experience takes place primarily in the Ocean Room — the main restaurant space at El Oceano, with its large glass walls looking directly out onto the beach and the Mediterranean beyond. On appropriate days these are opened fully, and the boundary between the restaurant and the sea essentially dissolves, creating an al-fresco feel even from an indoor table. The small stage and dancing area in the Ocean Room is perfectly positioned for the Sunday entertainment, giving performers the space to engage with the room and giving diners the option to join in when the music moves them.

Throughout the summer months, when the weather allows, the beachfront terrace is also available for Sunday lunch — an outdoor dining experience right on the Mediterranean that is as close to perfect as outdoor dining gets. The Veranda, with its glass-enclosed sea views towards North Africa, offers a slightly more private option for those who prefer it.

Whatever setting you choose, the view, the sound of the sea, and the quality of the light — particularly on a clear Sunday afternoon when the Mediterranean is at its most brilliantly blue — form an irreplaceable part of the experience.

The Practicalities

The Sunday Experience is the most popular event of the El Oceano week, and it fills up accordingly. During the peak summer months — July and August — bookings are typically required several weeks in advance, and there are Sundays when the restaurant is fully committed a month or more ahead. Easter Sunday, bank holiday weekends, and the Sundays around Christmas and New Year follow the same pattern.

Outside the peak months, availability is somewhat more accessible, but even in the quieter shoulder months of April, May, September, and October, Sunday bookings move quickly — particularly for tables with sea views and for the prime lunchtime slots. Our strong recommendation is to book as early as you possibly can. If you have a specific Sunday in mind — a birthday, an anniversary, a family gathering, a treat for visitors from home — please don't leave it too late.

Bookings can be made directly through the reservation system on this website, which is always the most reliable way to secure your table. For larger groups — eight or more — or for any special requirements, please contact us directly on (+34) 952 587 550 or at info@oceanohotel.com and we will make sure every detail is taken care of.

A smart-casual dress code applies. We ask that gentlemen wear long trousers for the Sunday Experience — it's a small courtesy that helps maintain the atmosphere that all of our guests come here to enjoy.

In Summary

The El Oceano Sunday Experience is a long, generous, celebratory afternoon that combines a genuinely accomplished Sunday menu with live entertainment from three distinct performers, a beachfront setting that is among the finest on the Costa del Sol, and the warm, personal service that defines everything El Oceano does.

It is the best Sunday on the Mijas Costa. Most people who experience it once come back again. Many of them come back every week.

Book early. Book direct. We look forward to welcoming you on Sunday.

El Oceano Beach Hotel, Mijas Costa, spain

Find El Oceano right on the water-front between Marbella and La Cala de Mijas, on Spain's beautiful Costa del Sol. Getting here is easy, we are just a 30 minutes drive from Málaga Airport.

El Oceano Beach Hotel
Km 1026, Calle Cádiz de Torrenueva 31
Mijas Costa, Málaga, Spain.

Telephone (+34) 952 587 550
oceanohotel.com . info@oceanohotel.com
facebook.com/oceanohotel . instagram.com/oceanobeachhotel