Meson Iberico

This little gem of restaurant has not changed since last year.
Upon bringing your drinks a few slices of chorizo or cheese is offered. Great service, pleasant waiters that will answer all your questions. Little English is spoken, (I speak fluent Spanish, not an issue for us) they do offer English menus! Prices are very reasonable and food is well prepared and first quality. Many locals at the bar.
They offer tapas as well as full meals. You can go to the bar area and point to your choice of tapas!
They offer two profiteroles (cream puff) per person at the end of the meal. Nice touch!
Worth leaving Calle Larios and coming to visit!

This was the first tapas bar/​restaurant I ate at, I went here solely based on one review I read, and I was not disappointed. You know a place has to be good when it’s packed full of locals and there’s not a single tourist in sight (myself excluded). They don’t speak English and their menu won’t be very useful if you don’t recognize any Spanish (or other European language as they often share similar words) words.
Upon my first visit I took a shot in the dark and ordered something with the word «Iberico» in it, figuring that if a word from the restaurant name is in it, then it must be good — I guessed right! I could tell it was some sort of pork which had a white pasty-​gelatinous coating on the outside, it was amazing. Upon arriving back home I did a little searching and found that jamon Iberico is considered (by some) to be «the world’s finest ham». Now I’m not generally a pork/​ham person, but I agree that this is up there with the best.
I also ordered something with the words jamon and champignon which I recognized as ham and mushrooms, again, amazing, and the best single tapas item I’ve ever had (I *love* mushrooms) to date! The mushrooms were exotic to possibly include shiitake, porcini, and enoki sautéed with small cubes of ham.

How can I possibly express the Platonic food perfection of Mesón Ibérico with the measly letters of a keyboard? This review is destined to be insufficient, for what I am trying to summarize here is the best meal of my entire life, which will never– I repeat, never — be outdone. Alas, I shall at least try.
I wasn’t truly sold on Spanish food until my wife and I stumbled upon the Mesón Ibérico few years ago on a lazy Saturday afternoon the day before heading home to the US after a great stay in Morocco and Andalucía. Yes, I always liked tapas and some of the core ingredients of Spanish cuisine — aceite de olivo, jamón, manchego, anchoas — but I never had experienced them together as an orchestrated symphony of flavors in a single dining experience.
We were staying at the Barceló and looking for a place in walking distance. Wandering through a seedy neighborhood, we thought we were going to have to settle for something mediocre, and we saw the Mesón. It had just opened, and looked surprisingly clean and inviting for the neighborhood, so we sat down at the bar prepared for something humble and adequate.
Moments after taking our seats and being saluted by the camareros, low and behold: trays and buckets of delicacies began to appear on the counter in front of us, as the barmen finished setting up. Fresh-​made spinach and pine nut croquettes. Live razor clams (tongues sticking out and moving around) ready to be boiled. Fresh from the tree cracked green olives in brine. Lomo and chorizo. A glorious leg of jamón ibérico. Fresh cigalas (small lobsters), ripe fruits, a sumptuous tortilla, and grilled and marinated setas (large mushrooms). I could go on and on. The friendly barmen began to hand us different tapas as we sipped on dry rosado wine, and they laughed as our eyes grew with astonishment and we ordered more and more. My wife and I are foodies and are not easily impressed, and yet we felt luckier and than Mario Batali on one of his adventures into Italy.
Glass of tinto, followed by a tapa of jamón…glass of blanco, along side a plate of manila clams sauteed in garlic and white wine… glass of port, a plate of fresh fruit. and on, and on and on… The bar filled up to the point that locals were reaching over us through the crowd to hand bartenders their euros, eagerly eying our seats as if we had any intention to leave. A jolly Spanish businessman and frequent traveler squeezed in next to me, offered me a cigarette, and told me we had found the best tapas bar in all of Spain. I believed him, and still do.
When the experience was over, we were 90 euros poorer, and needed a wheel barrow to get back to our hotel, but it was oh so worth every stomach discomfort and coin spent. We relive this experience over and over again every time we talk about our great meals together, and to this day continue to plot ways to fly back to Europe through Málaga, if only to stop at the Mesón for a few hours… Spanish food is now king in my world.