The Best Places to Eat Near Ababol, by the Record
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Rank 1. Ababol
Contemporary Spanish
An open kitchen presides over a sleek dining room in a city Azorín once called the New York of La Mancha, which is the kind of boast that makes more sense once you've eaten here. Ababol holds a Michelin star for contemporary cooking rooted in regional tradition, with sauces that earn serious plate-wiping and a French technical precision the chef inherited, almost literally, from his father. Tasting menus run alongside a la carte.
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Rank 2. Asador Concepción
Spanish
Vintage posters from the Albacete Fair line the bar at this family-run Spanish restaurant, now on its third generation and sitting a short walk from the Cathedral. The room splits between a lively bar with high tables and two proper dining rooms. The menu runs from tapas and small plates through serious La Mancha stews and select cuts of meat, with coastal dishes appearing where you might not expect them this far inland.
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Rank 3. Oba-
Modern Spanish
A Michelin-starred creative tasting menu restaurant in a small Castilian town that has no business being this interesting, and yet. The kitchen is obsessed with La Manchuela, its sheep breeds, valley crayfish, and fermented everything, pulling ingredients from local small producers and turning them into something that reads more like a thesis on the region than a dinner. Service finishes dishes tableside, which feels less theatrical here than it sounds.
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Rank 4. Cañitas Maite Gastro
Contemporary Spanish
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Rank 5. Maralba
Manchego Spanish
Fresh fish trucked in daily from a coastal market might seem like an odd flex for a restaurant sitting deep in the Castilian plain, but that supply line is the whole argument at Maralba. It holds two Michelin stars and serves as a love letter to Manchego cooking, with the chef leaning into regional dishes by name while his wife runs the room and the wine list with equal authority. The glass-walled cellar does the decorating.
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A cosy little restaurant in the Valencia countryside with a Nordic-inflected feel, where the kitchen runs on whatever the team foraged that morning, herbs and mushrooms included. The menu leans into regional rice dishes, among them a La Mancha gazpacho prepared as rice rather than soup, which takes some explaining and rewards the curiosity. Contemporary touches keep things from feeling like a museum. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand.
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Rank 7. Azafrán
Regional Spanish
Saffron from La Mancha gets its own ambassador here, and that ambassador happens to run the kitchen. This is a regional restaurant where the chef folds serious local flavors, game in season, and housemade Manchego boards into cooking that has one foot in tradition and one in something more considered. The Bib Gourmand from Michelin tracks. An all-female team runs the room with the kind of quiet confidence that makes you feel like a guest, not a table number.
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Rank 9. Loreto
Spanish
A former aristocratic family home in the center of Jumilla, converted into quietly elegant dining rooms where one sister runs the floor and the wine list while the other, a chemical engineer turned chef, applies that background to a contemporary menu built on local Murcian ingredients. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand. Jumilla wines anchor the list, which feels right given you're essentially eating in the middle of wine country.