The Best Places in Spain

The mantra here is "taste the unexpected," which a contemporary restaurant in a coastal Spanish town can either earn or merely print on menus. La Suculenta earns it by pairing familiar Spanish touchstones, croquetas, glass prawns, rice dishes made to order, with the kind of modern technique that keeps things interesting without announcing itself. Small plates anchor the à la carte, and a handful of set menus cover weekday lunches through leisurely weekend spreads.

A tucked-away Spanish restaurant just off the Gran Vía where the kitchen follows the market rather than any particular trend. The menu leans into seasonal, recognizable ingredients without making a fuss about it, and the steak tartare has developed something of a reputation on the Madrid dining circuit. Fits the classic tasca template in feel, but the cooking has clearly been thought about. The kind of place locals keep quiet about, then mention anyway.

Stews are taken seriously here, the kind built on time and seasons rather than shortcuts, at a warm wood-lined tavern in the Eixample that runs as a family operation. The kitchen leans traditional Catalan, with daily specials that shift around whatever fish came in from nearby auction houses that morning. The menu runs long, and the large sharing plates give the table an excuse to order more than planned.

A Galician-Neapolitan couple runs this wine bar and tavern in a small coastal village, which might explain why the menu moves freely between Galicia and Naples without an apology in either direction. The dining room sprawls across several areas, one of them a suspended terrace over the Ría do Porto. Portions are built for sharing, and the calamarata with fresh truffle and cecina is the dish that earns the most table conversation.

A panoramic restaurant on Lanzarote where the dining room view competes with whatever arrives on the plate, and the kitchen is happy to let both win. The chef, a local, runs through set menus that pull Canarian cooking into modern territory without losing sight of the island's larder. The cellar doubles as a dining curiosity, housing local cheeses and an aged Arehucas rum barrel you can actually visit.

Salt-crusted beef tenderloin carved tableside is the kind of showmanship that earns repeat visits, and La Terraza de Alba leans into it. This is a modern Spanish restaurant where traditional flavors get a careful update, and the menu is built for lingering: half portions on most dishes, a dedicated section for bluefin tuna, and rice dishes served for two. A private room off the side handles the corporate lunch crowd quietly, leaving the main room to everyone else.

A family restaurant tucked into a small country hotel in the Bierzo hills, where the son pours and talks wine, the daughter cooks alongside her father, and the mother holds the room together. The menu moves between à la carte and a tasting format, with contemporary cooking that keeps local Bercian ingredients close. The kind of place where the homeliness is structural, not performed.

The dining room is a restored 17th-century wine cellar, all stone and timber, and the kind of place that makes you feel vaguely obligated to order a second bottle. This Riojan restaurant leans into the regional pantry with a traditional menu that admits the occasional modern idea without making a fuss about it. Daily specials keep things from feeling static. Slow-cooked egg and braised oxtail are the dishes regulars seem to plan around.

A historic building in a tiny Galician village, carefully restored and hiding a restaurant inside that feels like a genuine secret. The young team cooks contemporary Spanish food rooted in local territory and collective memory, with a fixed-price menu plus two tasting options topping out at fourteen courses. The drive through the countryside to get there is half the point; the cooking through the door is the other half.

A young couple runs this contemporary tasting-menu restaurant out of a centuries-old stone house in rural Galicia, the dining room converted from the former stable. The kitchen grows much of what it serves and leans on the surrounding coast and meadows too, though vegetables quietly dominate the plates. A single surprise menu, and no choices to agonize over, which is either a relief or a dealbreaker depending on who you are.

The name means "calm" in Basque, which sets expectations the room apparently takes seriously. This is a trad-rooted fine dining spot on a narrow street near the river in central Bilbao, running a weekday lunch set menu alongside two longer tasting menus that dig into regional cooking and old flavors. It draws a crowd that books ahead, because you have to: the place fills up fast and stays that way.

The steak tartare and Crêpe Suzette are both finished tableside, which tells you most of what you need to know about this cosy Franco-European bistro on the plaza. A couple traded careers in painting and teaching to run it, and the menu stays short and deliberate. The wine list gets serious billing. It's the kind of place where the service remembers you and probably asks after you next time.

A single tasting menu anchors this contemporary Spanish restaurant tucked into Seville's old quarter near Plaza de la Gavidia. The name nods to a traditional gathering place for Andalusian trades, which sets the tone: the young team is fixated on Southern Spain, sourcing Iberian ham, white prawns, and local honey before weaving them through delicate broths and a kitchen that treats texture as seriously as flavor.

Dani García's name is on the door, and the room inside the Grand Hyatt Barcelona leans hard into the glamorous urban steakhouse brief: low light, premium cuts aged to specification, and a menu that slides between Japanese-inflected skewers and Catalan croquettes without apology. Grilled Málaga avocado turns up among the vegetables, a DJ turns up some evenings, and a personalized knife is yours to take home if the mood strikes.

The open grill is the point here, and the smoke announces it before you sit down. Leña Madrid is a steakhouse overseen by Dani García, the Marbella chef who has built a small empire on the idea that fire is enough of a philosophy. Cuts run from ribeye to tomahawk, with aged beef and occasional grilled fish sharing the menu. The room is polished enough that the carnivore-at-heart crowd arrives looking intentional about it.

Josper grills run hot here, and the whole room smells faintly of embers before you've sat down. Leña is a meat-forward restaurant from celebrity chef Dani García, with Tomahawks and T-bones as the main event and yakipinchos, a smoky riff on yakitori, keeping things interesting between cuts. The tableside Caesar salad, assembled in front of you with aged beef, is either a great bit of theatre or a provocation, depending on your mood.

The name honors the chef's mother and grandmother, which sets a warmer tone than the menu might suggest. This cozy contemporary bistro runs on a Japanese foundation that drifts, deliberately, toward Peru and beyond depending on the dish. The chef has cooked across several continents and it shows, in the way flavors from different traditions land on the same plate without fighting. A compact, personal room with food that keeps you guessing.

Named for their grandmother, this bistro on Fernando el Santo blends Mediterranean cooking with Argentine and Caribbean inflections in a combination that takes some nerve to pull off. One brother runs the kitchen, the other works the room, and the whole thing has the warmth of a family project that actually knows what it's doing. The vibe is cozy and unfussy, the kind of place that quietly fills up with locals who are in on it.

Bamboo plants in the window, dragon heads and red lanterns inside, and a dining room that stays busy enough that you probably shouldn't show up without a plan. This Shanghainese spot near Plaza de España builds its menu around xiaolongbao, shengjian bao, wonton, and hand-pulled lamian noodles, the kind of focused cooking that makes a short menu feel like a complete argument. The crowd skews young and loud, which suits the room.

A small bistro in Palma where they've quietly decided not to bother with beer, coffee, or soft drinks, so you're having wine from a small producer whether you planned to or not. The menu leans Mediterranean with enough international drift to stay interesting, and most things come designed for sharing. The gnocchi with cockles and bottarga has apparently never left the menu, which tells you something about the regulars.

A casual Peruvian restaurant modeled on the Brooklyn original, which itself named itself after the Andean animal, so there's a lineage worth knowing. The menu leans into sharing plates, with ceviche and yakimeshi sitting alongside a sautéed beef and duck jerky rice dish the kitchen calls the "fiesta final." A "Trust The Chef" tasting menu runs the whole table through the same ride. The vibe is relaxed enough that nobody's overdressed.

Open fireplaces and the whitewashed feel of a Menorcan farmhouse are doing a lot of work on the outskirts of Valladolid, which is not where you'd expect to find them. This is a modern Spanish restaurant where the kitchen takes traditional Castilian cooking and quietly rearranges it, running aged beef and slow-braised tripe alongside Albufera rice dishes that feel genuinely at home here. The room leans romantic, so dress accordingly.

Rice cooked over orange wood and vine shoots is the reason to understand this Spanish restaurant in Valencia. It's the project of celebrity chef Quique Dacosta, with an open kitchen and a menu built around serious cured ingredients and a seasonal tasting option. A few dishes are finished tableside, which feels theatrical until you realize the food earns the attention. The room leans convivial rather than hushed.

A contemporary restaurant a short walk from the cathedral, set in a sleek, two-room space where you can catch glimpses of the kitchen from the back dining area. The chef calls the approach "experimentation," which here means a creative tasting menu operation with three options to choose from, plus an extensive à la carte for the commitment-averse. Polished plating, an elegant room, and a strong sense that someone is genuinely trying to say something with the food.

The building has been standing since the 16th century, and Los Caños wears its bones well, mixing old stone and vaulted details with a cleaner, more current look. It's a full sit-down restaurant in Haro's La Herradura tapas quarter, the kind of place you duck into when the pintxos crawl needs a proper pause. The kitchen leans into traditional Riojan cooking, with Rioja-style cod as a reliable anchor and whatever the kitchen's small kitchen garden is producing that week.

A glass-fronted seafood restaurant on the Costa del Sol waterfront, with display cases of fish and shellfish that stop people mid-stride. The team runs its own boats, so the catch on ice is the menu. Shrimp from Fuengirola, langoustines from Huelva, and the famous red prawns are the things regulars order without looking up. The kitchen is open to the room, the terrace faces the sea, and the whole setup is considerably more elegant than the average beachside marisquería.

A Valencian couple running a rice-specialist restaurant in the Castilian highlands is exactly as surprising as it sounds. The chef finished in the top five at the International Paella Valenciana de Sueca competition, and the menu reads like proof, with paellas and rice dishes built around bluefin tuna, scarlet prawns, and partridge with truffle. Grilled fish and shellfish starters round things out for anyone who wandered in expecting roast lamb.

The Manchego cheesecake has apparently won awards on its own, which tells you something about how seriously this family-run restaurant takes its region. Two brothers run the room, one front, one back, and the kitchen leans into Castilian hunting traditions while keeping the cooking creative. Meals open with small bites and sharing plates before things get properly serious. A solid find in central Talavera de la Reina.

The underground tunnels where Rioja wine once aged are now where dinner starts, with a round of garden-fresh appetizers setting the tone before you move upstairs. This is a tasting-menu restaurant in a seventeenth-century bodega, all stone and quiet grandeur, running three set menus of contemporary Spanish cooking. An attic lounge handles post-dinner drinks, which tells you this isn't a place you're meant to rush through.

A Japanese kamado grill doing the heavy lifting at a Valencian bistro is a combination that took confidence to commit to. Chef Lester López, shaped by kitchens in Guatemala, the Canary Islands, and the Basque Country, runs a short, honest menu of grilled meats and fish, Mediterranean small plates, and cocas pulled from the oven while you watch. The room feels like someone's kitchen on a good night.

Two bar counters divide the dining room, one cold, one hot, both leaning east. Mantis is a casual restaurant in L'Antiga Esquerra de l'Eixample with an industrial fit-out and a menu that drifts freely between Asian technique and Catalan instinct. The team keeps things concise, with a midday formula and a longer tasting menu for when you're in no hurry. A Michelin Selected Restaurant, and very much the neighbourhood's open secret.

A short walk from Retiro park, this contemporary dining room is where a chef trained under the legendary Juan Mari Arzak runs an international menu with a Basque undercurrent. The format is generous: most dishes come available as half-plates, good for grazing across the card. The chef tends to wander the room mid-service to check in, which feels less like a gimmick and more like someone who genuinely can't help himself.

A glass floor with a water feature separates the ground-floor tapas bar from the more formal dining room upstairs, which tells you Marcela takes its staging seriously. The kitchen leans on market ingredients, with a sirloin Wellington that regulars seem to treat as non-negotiable. It sits steps from the Casa Botines, and on weekends live music drifts in from its partnership with the city auditorium.

A 19th-century mansion that once produced vinegar now houses this creative tasting-menu restaurant, and the team leans into that history with a dedication to acidic notes that runs through almost every sauce on the table. The cooking is rooted in seasonal Granada-region ingredients, and the escabeches in particular carry real conviction. One set menu, though they'll trim it by two courses if you ask nicely.

A stone house in medieval Allariz that once held a century-old restaurant now serves contemporary tasting menus named for a river and the Galician word for its murmur, a nod to a Rosalía de Castro poem. The chef, a Madrid native with deep summer roots here, works with small local producers and draws the menu's arc from the gentle and occasionally wild moods of the nearby River Arnoia. Two menus, short or long, with wine pairing available for both.

The Frank Gehry hotel that looks like a crumpled wine foil dropped on a Rioja hillside is the setting, and the restaurant inside leans into that drama. Chef Francis Paniego runs two tasting menus of modern Basque cooking, rooted in seasonal produce from Rioja and Álava, with one famous croquette recipe inherited from his mother that rather steals the show. Dress well; the titanium roof sets a high bar.

A staircase leads up to a black-and-gold dining room with a glassed-in wine cellar and, if you look closely, quiet nods to the animated film "Up." This contemporary tasting-menu restaurant in central Jerez runs on locally sourced ingredients with international inflection, and the kitchen's tribute to a local baker tells you something about how seriously the team takes its suppliers. The Michelin Guide has selected it.

A farmhouse restaurant a short drive from Vic, where the stone-and-timber setting comes with a glass-fronted terrace and a menu that leans into Catalan tradition without getting stuck there. The kitchen runs under the influence of Nandu Jubany, and daily specials shift the whole thing toward something more alive. The duck glazed with heather honey and a rum baba finished tableside both make a case for lingering longer than you planned.

Two partners from the Dominican Republic running a Japanese izakaya in a small Catalan fishing town sounds like a premise, but the food is the punchline that lands. The menu moves from nigiri and sashimi into sushi rolls and robata-grilled plates, with a Katshu Sando that fuses Dominican smoked pork with tonkatsu sauce. Casual and relaxed, the kind of place where the owners still remember your order.

Peruvian restaurant on the 19th floor of the Grand Hyatt Barcelona, with a panoramic terrace that makes the city feel like a side dish. Chef Omar Malpartida works with Mediterranean produce to cook across Peru's coast, mountains, and jungle, so the menu moves from ceviches to grilled dishes to shareable plates without any obvious logic except that it keeps working. The room is designed to evoke a jungle hut, which at this altitude is either absurd or perfect.

A gourmet beach shack perched between two Galician beaches with the island of Ons sitting on the horizon, which is either deeply unfair or exactly what you came to Galicia for. The glass-fronted dining room and terrace both give you the view, and the kitchen leans into traditional regional cooking with a modern edge, leaning on the open grill and a menu section devoted to rice and fideuá dishes.

A contemporary Mediterranean restaurant inside a golf-club clubhouse, which sounds like a punchline until the food arrives. Two chefs named Pablo run the kitchen together, turning out dishes that move between French and Asian influences without losing the Mediterranean thread. Tasting menus run from a tight three-course format up to eight courses with wine pairings, or you can order à la carte if commitment feels like too much.

A centuries-old farmhouse at the foot of Anboto mountain, with stone walls, wood beams, and a terrace that looks out over the valley like a painting someone forgot to finish. This is a traditional Basque restaurant, the kind that takes grilled dishes and regional ingredients seriously without making a fuss about it. A lunchtime set menu sits alongside the à la carte, and the locals filling the room rarely seem to need a recommendation.

The owner's wine cellar doubles as a tasting room, and she's been known to bring guests down to pick their own bottle. This old-school Galician restaurant sits in a traditional stone house in Vilalba, with a bar and bodega on the ground floor and a rustic dining room above. The menu follows the seasons, leaning toward wild mushrooms and game, the kind of partridge-and-venison cooking that feels like the countryside just walked in.

Fish priced by weight on a short menu is usually a sign you're somewhere the kitchen trusts what it's selling. This easygoing restaurant sits in the pedestrianized old quarter of Puerto de Vega, a coastal town pretty enough to justify the detour on its own. The chef runs the room as much as the kitchen, coming out to talk to guests, and the cooking leans on local products and traditional recipes without making a fuss about either.

A pedestrian street in Teruel's old quarter is an unlikely address for a restaurant built around Balfegó tuna and locally raised Wagyu beef, but here we are. Método is a contemporary dining room with fusion leanings, where the à la carte leans hard on those two ingredients and a tasting menu traces the tuna from cut to cut, hot and cold. The kitchen takes its plating seriously, which you will notice immediately.

A terrace on the slopes of Gibralfaro hill with the city and the Mediterranean laid out below is a hard opening act to follow, yet the kitchen keeps up. This is a small-plates restaurant where the chef treats Málaga as a city that has always absorbed outside ideas, mixing local produce with global influences across a menu that moves from Andalusian cheese to yuzu without breaking a sweat. A tasting menu runs alongside the à la carte.

A contemporary dining room inside an old two-storey house, right where the Arco de la Estrella opens into Cáceres's medieval walled city. The menu leans into Extremaduran tradition, with migas, local Retinta beef, and Torta del Casar cheese all making appearances. A tasting menu called Las Niñas runs alongside the à la carte, named for the chef father the owner-daughters are clearly proud of.

The views of Zurriola beach from Monte Ulía are the kind that make you forget you were supposed to be paying attention to dinner. This creative tasting-menu restaurant has been in the same family for three generations, and the current chef builds menus around Basque ingredients and the dietary habits of populations that apparently live forever. Whether that's the fish or the wine pairing doing the work is left as an exercise for the diner.

The rear dining room looks out over the Parque Natural de Las Batuecas-Sierra de Francia, which is reason enough to ask for a table there. This old-school restaurant in the medieval village of Mogarraz has been around forever, its stone facade blending into the surroundings as if it never considered doing otherwise. The kitchen runs traditional Spanish, stews and roasted meats doing the heavy lifting, with a tasting menu if you'd rather leave the decisions to someone else.

Four seats at the bar put you close enough to watch the chef explain every move, which is either the menu or the whole point, depending on your mood. This is a small, informal bistro on Paseo de Mallorca where a Brazilian-born chef channels years in Barcelona into a tight, grill-forward menu rooted in traditional Spanish cooking. The room is relaxed, the cooking is not.

Sitting beside the old fish exchange on Alicante's marina, Monastrell is a contemporary Mediterranean restaurant built around whatever is growing or swimming nearby, much of it from the team's own kitchen garden a few miles inland. The cooking leans into clean, unfussy flavors that read as classically Alicantine even when the technique is modern. The terrace catches a good breeze off the water, which helps explain why it fills up fast.

The walls here are deliberately left chipped, because the room has stories to tell. Nacha is a bistro with an Argentine and Mediterranean soul, sharing plates designed around grilled meats but not defined by them. It sits across from the CondeDuque culture center in a former old café, all slender wrought iron columns and a vintage air nobody had to manufacture. The short menu leans Spanish and Argentine, with detours elsewhere kept sensible.

Fish pulled from the local market, vegetables from nearby gardens, and meats from the Castellón interior: the chef at this minimalist Mediterranean restaurant in Vinaròs lets the sourcing do the talking. The room is spare by design, so nothing distracts from a tasting menu that moves between coast and countryside in a way that makes the geography feel like the actual concept.

Two long communal tables in the old quarter of A Coruña, steps from the yacht club, sum up the whole aesthetic at NaDo: spare, modern, and very deliberate. The open kitchen and the chef circling between it and the room keep things theatrical without trying. The cooking is creative Galician, rooted in the Atlantic, and the set menu hands all the choosing to the kitchen, which at least saves an argument.

The name is Dorian spelled backwards, a nod to the chef's son that sets the tone for a place with a personality. This bistro-style spot in the Eixample runs on market cooking, with the kitchen leaning hard into fish and, when the season allows, game: hare, venison, partridge, and pigeon that regulars tend to plan around. The room is small and contemporary, and the vibe is intimate without trying too hard about it.

Nacho Manzano, the Asturian chef behind the Michelin-starred Casa Marcial, runs this traditional restaurant inside a stone country palace ringed by meadows and the Picos de Europa. The menu leans on regional cooking, with dishes drawn from the Casa Marcial playbook but grounded in the local larder. An old mill on the property still grinds cornflour, which ends up in the cornmeal fritters that open the meal.

Across the street from the Buen Pastor cathedral, Narru runs two rooms under one roof: a casual front space for pintxos and drinks, and a tablecloth dining room behind it where the à la carte gives way to a tasting menu that leans hard on the grill. The fish, especially, gets the treatment, turbot, sole, and red mullet over live fire. Market-driven and traditional, with enough technique to keep things interesting.

A hare à la royale with daikon and a cube of foie gras tells you exactly where the chef's head is at: rooted in the Marina Alta but not remotely beholden to it. The restaurant sits inside a resort hotel yet keeps its own entrance and identity, with earth tones and abstract ceiling sculptures giving it an unhurried, slightly otherworldly mood. Nazario Cano runs tasting menus that track local seasons and traditional flavors through a rigorously personal lens.

A neighborhood spot on a quiet Barcelona street where the chef builds his modern tasting menu almost entirely around small local producers, which sounds like a marketing line until you taste how different it makes the food. There's à la carte if you prefer, but the tasting menu is where the kitchen is clearly having fun, pairing things that shouldn't quite work together until they do.

A female mannequin, rock-and-roll memorabilia, and ceramic plates the owners made themselves set the tone at this family-run restaurant in El Sauzal, tucked beside the old church. The menu changes weekly, chasing whatever the market has, so the kitchen might land anywhere from amberjack sashimi to squid lasagne. Everything is built for sharing, which suits the relaxed terrace perfectly.

The owner still buys the hake and tuna personally at the fish auctions in Celeiro and Burela, which tells you something about how a family-run seafood restaurant inside a hotel on the Galician coast actually operates. The terrace looks out over sea, beach, and mountains simultaneously, which feels slightly unfair to everywhere else. Order whatever came off the boat that morning and let the kitchen sort out the details.

The dining rooms lean into a retro Italian pop aesthetic from the 1970s, all considered and a little theatrical. This contemporary Italian restaurant in Recoletos is run by a chef from Puglia who steers well clear of the pasta-and-pizza comfort zone, cooking his way through Italy's regions with some seriousness. The set menu called "From South to North" does roughly what it says. A room that knows what it is, which is rarer than it sounds.