Surely nobody on earth would be stupid enough to buy a mountain tract of arid land that had no electricity or water on the Costa del Sol in the south of Spain and
think they could build a successful restaurant there. Nobody except for Paul Hickling that is.
The year was 1981 and the Costa del Sol was awash with celebrities, glamour and gangsters. David Niven, SophiaLoren, Sean Connery, Rod Stewart, Freddie Foremanand, erm, Wham! They were all drawn by the allure and fun of this Mediterranean coastline. Hickling’s dream was to feed them and millions of tourists.
This is the story of one man’s success in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And yet, after over thirty years of toil, trouble, heartache and the cost of two failed
marriages the restaurant has become an unbridled success on the coast of broken dreams. This is a rapidly-paced account of sheer madness on the Costa, with tales of disaster and despair midst cocktail-sipping celebrities, matched bravely against Hickling’s undying will to raise the Phoenix from the ashes that were The Roman Oasis Restaurant. Over the decades it ew high above the dark clouds of Spain’s bureaucracy and pre-European Union laws that tried to rain down upon it. This is a book for anyone who loves Spain; for anyone who knew it in the wild, sangria-fuelled, good old days of the peseta to the Euro of today. It is for anyone who sat upon the warm sands and thought, I wonder what it would be like to open a place here...
think they could build a successful restaurant there. Nobody except for Paul Hickling that is.
The year was 1981 and the Costa del Sol was awash with celebrities, glamour and gangsters. David Niven, SophiaLoren, Sean Connery, Rod Stewart, Freddie Foremanand, erm, Wham! They were all drawn by the allure and fun of this Mediterranean coastline. Hickling’s dream was to feed them and millions of tourists.
This is the story of one man’s success in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And yet, after over thirty years of toil, trouble, heartache and the cost of two failed
marriages the restaurant has become an unbridled success on the coast of broken dreams. This is a rapidly-paced account of sheer madness on the Costa, with tales of disaster and despair midst cocktail-sipping celebrities, matched bravely against Hickling’s undying will to raise the Phoenix from the ashes that were The Roman Oasis Restaurant. Over the decades it ew high above the dark clouds of Spain’s bureaucracy and pre-European Union laws that tried to rain down upon it. This is a book for anyone who loves Spain; for anyone who knew it in the wild, sangria-fuelled, good old days of the peseta to the Euro of today. It is for anyone who sat upon the warm sands and thought, I wonder what it would be like to open a place here...
