Sonsoles López and the art of making the visitor feel

Ico Palace cannot be understood just by looking at its façade, entering one of your rooms or sitting at your restaurant table. To really understand the project you have to listen to Sonsoles Lopez, one of the people who has been shaping, character and meaning to this unique space in the Villa de Teguise.

She is the protagonist this week of GastroTalks, conversations with a taste of life, in an interview that covers the hospitality industry, the restoration, the heritage, the service and, above all, for a certain way of understanding Lanzarote.

Ownership, with Eduardo Riestra, of the Ico Palace Emblematic Hotel, In the conversation, López reviews the journey of a project that has grown without losing sight of its main reason for being.: offer an experience connected to the place where it is born.

the house, the environment, the architecture, the calm, Gastronomy and visitor service are part of the same idea. It's not just about hosting, but to build an experience capable of transmitting something of the character of the island and the history of Teguise.

Gastronomy occupies an essential place within that philosophy. The restaurant Ico Palace, con Victor Valverde in front of the kitchen, has been consolidating a proposal linked to the product, to the territory and a contemporary reading of Canarian cuisine. That job was obtained in 2025 his first Sol Repsol and also maintains the recommendation of the Michelin Guide.

However, The interview allows us to look beyond the distinctions. One of the topics that runs through the conversation is the value of hospitality, understood not as a protocol formula, but as the ability to make those who arrive feel good.

Sonsoles López talks about the details, of the deal, of listening and everything that happens around a table before the first dish even appears. A concept of service that turns the room into a fundamental part of the gastronomic experience.

Also appears, inevitably, Lanzarote. Not as a simple stage, but as raw material for the project. The island is in the landscape, in the products, in the rhythms, in architecture, in the way of receiving and in the desire to offer the visitor something that cannot be found exactly the same elsewhere.

The conversation also leaves room for the risks and difficulties that exist behind any business initiative of these characteristics.. Because achieving recognition is only the visible part of a process built on decisions, constant work and a very specific idea of ​​how an establishment should relate to its environment.

In this new episode of GastroTalks, Sonsoles López speaks, definitely, restoration, turismo, heritage and gastronomy, but also something less tangible and perhaps more important: how to get a place to have its own personality.

The full interview can now be seen and listened to on YouTube and Spotify.