Reputations, once forged, are often hard to shake off. For better or worse, Gran Canaria is mainly known as a cheap-and-cheerful holiday island that pre-pandemic attracted more than four million visitors per year, many of them taking refuge from the dark northern European winter.    

Last year, however, word began to reach me that this Canary Island, the third largest in the archipelago, was coming to the boil as a hotspot for cuisine both traditional and modern, for remarkable wines, and for a range of ingredients astonishing in their diversity. “It’s evident: Gran Canaria is undergoing a gastronomic explosion,” wrote veteran Spanish food critic José Carlos Capel in El País.

I flew in from Madrid and from the postcard-perfect port of Mogán I took set off inland, winding along a valley towards the gloomy peaks of the central mountains. Deep in the barranco were plantations of dark-leaved fruit trees — mango, avocado, fig, and citrus — running like a green river along the valley floor.