El Estanquet

El Estanquet is an old 19th-century roadside inn out in the Elche countryside, away from the town-centre tourist routes, which after generations in the trade has become a reference point for Elche cooking and, specifically, for wood-fired arroz con costra.

Arroz con costra is a rice dish cooked with meat and cured sausage that finishes in the oven until the beaten egg poured over it sets into a golden crust. It's a dish of humble origin — built to use up meat and sausage left over from the pig slaughter — that over time became the most representative dish of Elx and the wider Baix Vinalopó comarca.