Top culinary offerings at the best restaurants in Valencia, Spain

The modern Gran Azul restaurant welcomes its guests with the warm beige and ivory colors of the spacious dining hall and invites everyone to relish the bountiful local top-quality produce. While capturing you with stylish aesthetics, the place makes you fall in love with its mind-blowing food. Orchestrated by Chef Abraham Brández, the kitchen introduces you to the world of Spanish cuisine, dominated by rice, fish, seafood, and grilled meats. All the ingredients are selected from the city market and transformed into a symphony of flavors and textures.

Start your meal at Gran Azul by ordering spider crab croquette or tuna belly sashimi with tomato pickle. Next, move on to their entrées, such as rice with lobster and octopus, paella with chicken, rabbit, and vegetables, or grilled Mediterranean sea bass. As Fernand Point once pointed out (pun intended): “A meal without dessert is like a suit without a tie.” So don’t skip this sweet indulgence and complete your culinary quest by savoring their tender lemon meringue pie.

A place that knows how to beautifully combine sophisticated elegance and a natural village vibe (who would believe that you can fuse these two?), LIA Valencia is a contemporary restaurant revolving around Mediterranean and global cuisine. The gigantic windows of the cream-colored dining space let the stunning urban landscape become the backdrop of your meal. And lush green flower pots add a touch of coziness and cute accents to the minimalist setup.

The creative dishes of LIA Valencia and its talented team keep landing on newspaper spreads, earning the venue the everyone’s darling status. Join the army of admirers by trying cinnamon quinoa salad with spinach, roast pumpkin, and fruits with honey mustard; tuna tataki, Iberian ham, or cod confit with basil oil. In drinks, we obviously recommend taking a glass of sangria. But if you want something less sweet, Seagram’s or Gin Mare with tonic and a lemon slice will be a great alternative.

Established in 2005, Entrevins is a family-run venue in the Ruzafa neighborhood that presents an updated take on good traditional fare. It is perhaps closer to a wine bar than a restaurant since its cellar consists of over 1000 labels in continuous rotation with more than 200 Champagnes from independent maisons, national and international wines, and a section with old vintages from the 1920s to the 1970s. Visitors will be treated to haute seafood-based cuisine in an elegant setting that feels like a modern home. The interiors feature polished wood-paneled flooring, leather-furnished metal chairs, large French windows, and brick-lined walls.

The kitchen team gives you an option between a daily special and lunch offering, along with an à la carte menu. Indulge your taste buds in gastronomic delights, such as tuna tataki with beetroot in guacamole sauce, flame-cooked sardine with lemon emulsion, sea snails with jamón mayonnaise, grilled octopus with mashed potatoes, and roasted beef bone marrow with toast. Elevate your dining experience by taking their expert sommelier, Guillaume Glories (winner of the 2010 Madrid Fusion national championship) suggestions, and carefully pairing each dish with the perfect wine.

Started in 2015, Nozomi Sushi Bar is the dream project of restaurateurs Nuria and José Miguel Herrera, who are passionate about Japanese culture and its cuisine. The founders selected such a poetic word for the name, meaning the illusion of a fulfilled wish. For the interior design, they employed Valencia-based consultancy Masquespacio, who helped create a zen-like ambiance that evoked the feel of a Japanese city.

Nozomi reminds many people of a typical street in Kyoto, with authentic wooden houses consisting of lightweight stalls, shelves, and partitions, as well as a bar with a fantastic origami-inspired cherry-tree-blossom ceiling. The food served is a contemporary omakase style degustation menu featuring miso soup, seaweed salad, tempura or sashimi, usuzukuri (thinly sliced fish), 8 eight pieces of nigiri, and one temaki. The meal is accompanied by traditional tea, sake, and a few local wine options to choose from.

Located in the heart of the city, Llisa Negra is one of the more casual outposts of the Quique Dacosta group of restaurants. It serves excellent paellas, seafood, and other Valencian classics with a twist. Their dining philosophy focuses on the product, and they work with numerous farms of the region to source top-quality ingredients. In the live kitchen, the grill, embers, and wood fire take center stage.

Quique Dacosta is a three Michelin-starred chef from Dénia (Alicante), who is known around the world for his artistic expression in cuisine by using his culture, territory, and lifestyle as a symbol of innovation. Your gastronomic journey starts with a traditional Spanish bread service with raw tomato, garlic, and lots of extra virgin olive oil. Then you move on to tapas plates of salt-cured tuna, beef tartare with egg yolk, and wood-grilled artichoke. For the main course, relish scrumptious dishes like langoustine paella topped with kimchi uni butter, grilled cod with asparagus, and fire-roasted steak with mashed potatoes. Pair your meal with their remarkable wine labels hand-picked by the knowledgeable sommelier, Manuela Romeralo.

Canalla Bistro in the trendy Ruzafa area of Valencia is a casual restaurant by Michelin-starred chef Ricard Camarena. It boasts an impressive fusion cuisine with a nod to the Far East, South America, and the Mediterranean. The decor is relaxed yet quirky: dark dining rooms punctuated by bright lights, gray marbled flooring, and large artificial pig heads on the black brick walls.

Canalla Bistro offers a brilliant opportunity to try delectable food at affordable prices, accompanied by fine wines. The menu has been cleverly designed to attract a young, modern clientèle who are keen to experiment with new things. Some of the eclectic dishes you can sample here are crunchy salmon cones with wasabi, Peking-style pork bun, chili garlic prawns, meat and vegetable gyoza with pepper hoisin sauce, mushroom green curry with black rice, and smoked Korean beef ribs with pak choy. Finish strong with exquisite dessert items like rum-roasted pineapple sorbet with coconut and whiskey cake with burnt caramel ice cream.

It is close to impossible to illustrate the majestic city of Valencia and all its offerings in just one review. Therefore, we have prepared a whole set of food & travel guides which can help you plan an impeccable journey involving local cuisine and attractions.

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