Toruño del Rocío

The rooms are large, clean and quiet, and the buffet breakfast is good. Staff are very nice, and the price is good value. It’s a comfortable, pleasant hotel in a central spot in El Rocio village, very close to the main church. Definitely recommend it.

The food was excellent, the place was cozy and pleasant, and the staff made us feel welcome. Recommended!

It was a quiet bar, understandably. We ordered three beers. Two arrived as full glasses, but the third was cloudy and only half full. When we asked about it, we were told that was the end of the barrel. They charged us for all three anyway. Rude, and we won’t be back.

El Rocío is an amazing town and a unique way to experience Andalucía and Doñana. This was our fifth visit, after trips in 1990, 1996, 2000 and 2018. We’d had lunch and drinks at Toruño with our kids in 2018 and it was fine. This time we came back for dinner with a friend, but it turned into an awful evening. We arrived late, around 21:30, and the waiter at the entrance was almost hostile. We couldn’t go to the back, where a wedding party seemed to be wrapping up, or choose our own table. There was only one white wine available, so no real choice, and the waiter was rude when we asked about it. His answer about the fish was dismissive too. There were only three kinds, and asking which ones was apparently too much. We ordered meat instead, but even asking for extra sauce brought visible impatience and more rudeness. We started with gambas, expecting them to be warm and grilled, but they came cold and overly salty. Maybe that was a misunderstanding, but when we tried to check, the replies were curt again. A female staff member cut us off while we were still speaking and walked away to get the main waiter. That was rude too. We paid and left rather than let the meal spoil the evening and the start of our trip to Spain. In our opinion, Toruño shows no understanding of hospitality or customer service. The staff seemed to take no joy in their work, and we wouldn’t recommend eating there. Thankfully, we ended up at Cristina and had a simple but great dinner. To our surprise, it was the same place we’d visited on our first trip in 1990, when we were students interrailing through Europe. It made for a lovely end to an otherwise disappointing evening.