Alicante Restaurant Guide

The best restaurants in Alicante City with full details and location map

There is a wide range of restaurants in the city offering typical Alicante dishes. If you plan on ordering paella, allow an extra half hour before your meal arrives, or call ahead and they'll start it while you're driving over.

To save some money and still eat in the best places, look out for the menu boards placed outside of each restaurant to advertise the "menu del día", a selection of 2 - 3 course meal which includes a drink of your choice, dessert and sometimes coffee for very reasonable prices. They are usually available only during lunchtime. Excellent value!

In Spain, service is included with the price of the meal or drink. However, tipping is a common practice, depending on the total price for the service, and on the generosity of the client. It is usually around five to ten percent of the total price.

Darsena

Alicante's best known fish and paella restaurant recently moved to the end of the new port to a new, modern building more stylish than the previous one.

Elegant surroundings, fantastic views of the city, dining next to the harbour and the excellent cuisine will definitely make your evening a special one.

The Darsena boasts the best rices of the whole of Alicante, offers over 150 different varieties and is very popular with visitors and locals alike.

One of the more memorable paellas is arroz con bacalao y costar de ajo, which is made with salt cod, thinly sliced garlic, and potatoes, the medley crowned by a light, airy egg crust.

If you are not a seafood person, try their arroz con magro y verduras (pork and vegetables) which is also excellent. Delicious desserts, including "helado de turrón", another local favourite. It is ice-cream made from almond and honey nougat.

Bookings:

• Phone: 96 5207589 - 96 5143745
• Int: (+34) 96 5207399
• Email: restaurante@darsena.com

Darsena Restaurant location Map

Nou Manolin

The restaurant was established in 1972 and is very well favoured amongst locals for its selection of 50 tapas which is served on a daily basis, serving everything from shrimp in garlic sauce to batter-fried fresh anchovies.

The restaurant features tiled walls and uniformed staff, which add to the elegant ambience of the restaurant.

The menu focuses mainly on a selection of paellas, but includes many great dishes consisting of fish which is cooked in a salt crust, many different kinds of stews, fresh shellfish, and a wide selection of Iberian wines.

Bookings:

• Phone: 96 5200368
• Fax: 96 5217007
• Email: administracion@noumanolin.com

Nou Manolin Restaurant location Map

El Jumillano

It offers a cornucopia of succulent food, including fresh fish laid out in the dining room on the sun-bleached planks of an antique fishing boat.

Many menu items are derived from locally inspired recipes. The specialties include a "festival of canapés," slices of cured ham served with fresh melon, shellfish soup with mussels, Alicante stew, pigs' trotters, a savory filet of beef seasoned with garlic, and a full gamut of grilled hake, sea bass, and shellfish.

Bookings:

• Phone: 96 5211764

El Jumillano Restaurant location Map

El Buen Comer

Typically Spanish restaurant and tapas bar which is very popular with the locals.

Located in a little street at the back of the Town Hall you can sample special evening menus offering good choice of steak, pork or lamb dishes, or try the hake, calamari, or the tasty prawns – all at very reasonable prices.

Bookings:

• Phone: 96 5213103

El Buen Comer Restaurant location Map

El Monastrell

This lovely restaurant offers a culinary experience in a trendy atmosphere, combining the best local traditional ingredients with a modern approach to cuisine.

The owner and also the cook, María José San Román, is a self-taught cook who knows how to combine its innovative vocation with the typical Mediterranean recipes.

That’s why her dishes combine the respect for the local product with the aim of inventing new tastes and the influence of the new Catalan and Levante cuisine.

In the results, prevail the visual refinement, taste’s clarity, technique’s control, the sensorial contrasts and the lightness and complexity of each bite.

All this, with a dietary, ecological and very cosmopolite mind.

Bookings:

• Phone: 96 5200363

El Monastrell Restaurant location Map

Azahar

Small and tastefully decorated, the Azahar (which is the Spanish word for orange blossom) offers traditional Alicantino dishes from the coast and from the mountains, including stews, rice dishes, soups, grilled vegetables etc.

Adventurous (and hungry) visitors might like to try the arroz con costra, a version of paella made with sausages and black sausage baked in the oven with a layer of beaten eggs on the top which becomes hard, forming a crust (hence the word "costra).

Bookings:

• Phone: 96 5121348

Azahar Restaurant location Map

Alicante Restaurant Guide

Related Info