The Best Restaurants Near La Costa, by the Record

The greenhouse sea of plastic sheeting that blankets this corner of Almería is, somewhat improbably, the point. A Michelin-starred family restaurant, La Costa turns that industrial landscape into a source of pride, with the chef's tasting menu framing El Ejido as a hidden oasis rather than an agricultural eyesore. Fish and seafood from the Alborán Sea anchor the plates, alongside vegetables pulled from small local producers who supply the very greenhouses outside.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The chef's childhood in Almería and his years cooking in the Netherlands make an unlikely but coherent pair on the plate. This contemporary Mediterranean restaurant runs on a single surprise tasting menu, where local red prawns and gurullos pasta meet Japanese and Peruvian notes without any of it feeling like a geography lesson. Wine pairings are available, and the room feels like somewhere a cook opened a restaurant because he actually wanted to, not to impress anyone.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A wall of colorful vegetables at the entrance sets the tone at this gastrobar on the ground floor of the Avenida Hotel. The open kitchen turns out contemporary Andalusian cooking that moves between traditional and modern, available à la carte or through set menus, including a fully plant-based option that treats Almería's famous produce as the main event rather than the supporting cast.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A family restaurant on the Andalusian coast where two brothers run a spare, white-walled room in a village calm enough to think in. The contemporary menu moves between coastal shellfish, choice meats, and the odd Asian flourish without making a fuss about the combination. The rice dishes, built for two and largely available by reservation only, suggest the kind of place where it pays to plan just slightly ahead.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The chef presses his own olive oil and grows half the vegetables out back, which tells you most of what you need to know about this family-run restaurant tucked into Monachil's old quarter. It's a rustic, unfussy place, the kind where the cooking is technically simple but the ingredients are doing serious work. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, it moves between a shaded summer terrace and two warm dining rooms, all regional character, no performance.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

A restored Andalusian mansion in the Valle de Lecrín is not the most obvious place to find contemporary tasting menus with Latin American undertones, and yet here we are. The chef trained under Thomas Keller and brings a creative, international sensibility to the table, with his partner running a warm and polished front of house. Lunch runs shorter; dinner goes the distance.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant