A Grill Fueled by Heat Beneath the Island
At El Diablo, the cooking fire is not built with charcoal or gas. The restaurant’s grill sits over a deep opening in Lanzarote’s volcanic ground, where heat rising from below reaches the cooking surface. That steady geothermal heat—the natural warmth stored underground—does the work of a conventional barbecue.
The distinction matters: the grill is not set over a pool of molten lava. Instead, intense heat escapes through the ground in a landscape shaped by volcanic activity. The pit channels that heat toward a cast-iron cooking surface, where chefs can grill meat without bringing fuel to the site.
Turning a Volcanic Landscape Into a Kitchen
The setup makes the island’s geology part of the restaurant’s practical design. A normal grill depends on a fire that cooks can light, feed, and adjust. Here, the source is underground, so the cooking area has to be arranged around heat that is already there. The cast iron provides the surface for cooking while separating the food from the opening below.
That arrangement also makes the spectacle inseparable from the meal: diners are eating food cooked by the same subterranean forces that shaped Lanzarote’s dramatic terrain. The result is less a barbecue with an unusually dramatic fuel source than a kitchen built around a natural heat vent.
