What to Eat in Alicante: A Guide to the Province's Food

The food of Alicante province doesn't reduce to a seafront terrace special. It rests on three distinct pillars: rice cooked in fish stock, from the fishing towns along the coast; shellfish and fish auctioned off fresh every afternoon at the province's fish markets; and the almond and spoon-food cooking of the interior, where there's no sea but there is dry-farmed market garden and a sierra thick with almond trees. Each has its own geography within the province: rice is cooked in Santa Pola, Tabarca and Elx; shellfish is auctioned in Dénia and cured at Alicante's Central Market; turrón and almonds come out of Xixona and Alcoy; and spoon cooking survives in mountain villages such as Confrides and in Orihuela's Vega Baja. The rice dishes get a guide of their own, with the differences between arròs a banda, caldero and arroz con costra explained dish by dish in where to eat rice in Alicante. This guide covers everything else.

Shellfish and fish: what the market brings in every afternoon

The trawlers that catch Dénia's red prawn work between 18 and 20 nautical miles offshore, at depths of 600 to 800 metres, and usually come back with one or two boxes per boat — that scarcity explains much of the price. What comes in during the morning is auctioned that same afternoon at the port's fish market, using a descending-price system, and usually ends up on a plate that same night. At Alicante's Central Market, the Art Nouveau building that has worked as a market since 1921, a second-generation salazones stall still cures mojama, roe and anchovies by hand, with fish arriving from markets such as Barbate, San Pedro del Pinatar and Pilar de la Horadada. Further south, in La Vila Joiosa, borreta de melva sums up the cooking of a town that has lived off fishing for centuries: melva stewed with potato and onion, with no ambition beyond using up the day's catch.

Turrón and almond sweets

Almonds and honey reached the province with the Arabs, and Xixona ended up as the town that specialised in turning them into turrón: the surrounding sierra grows quality almonds and the town had a beekeeping tradition. The Protected Geographical Indication today covers two processes: Turrón de Jijona is made by grinding the almonds into a paste and mixing it warm with honey, giving it a soft texture; Turrón de Alicante keeps the almonds whole and pressed into hard bars. A family factory dating back to 1725, Turrones El Lobo, still produces in the same town under the El Lobo and 1880 brands. Alcoy supplies the province's other great almond speciality: the peladilla, an almond coated in a hard sugar shell that for generations was obligatory at weddings, christenings and Christmas tables, and once had one of Spain's first dedicated factories in the town.

Wine and produce from the land

The province's interior, in the Vinalopó valley, runs on Monastrell, the native grape behind Fondillón, a sweet, aged wine made from overripe Monastrell that requires a minimum of ten years' ageing in the bodega. Documented references to Alicante's Monastrell reds go back to the late 15th century, and Fondillón was once one of the most sought-after wines in Europe, before phylloxera and vineyard abandonment reduced its production to a handful of certified bodegas. The same comarca produces the Vinalopó bagged table grape, each bunch hand-covered in a paper bag while it ripens, a technique documented in Novelda since 1919 and protected by a Designation of Origin since 1996 — the only table grape in the world carrying that label, and the one behind many of the twelve midnight grapes eaten on New Year's Eve.

Spoon cooking from the interior

Away from the coast, mountain villages solved for protein with salt-cured fish carried up from the sea and whatever the dry-farmed market gardens gave. In Alcoy, pericana — dried peppers, desalted salt cod or capellán and garlic, all pounded with olive oil — is spread over toasted bread and never served hot. In the Vall de Confrides, olleta alicantina is a winter stew of beans, lentils and rice or wheat that began as a meat-free dish for Lent, with a feast-day variant — olleta de músics — that adds ribs or morcilla. In the Vega Baja, bollitori — beans, potato, squash and desalted cod, no meat — still turns up on Orihuela's tables every Maundy Thursday. And in the city of Alicante, coca amb tonyina marks the night of the plantà of the Fogueres de Sant Joan: a thin pastry of tuna, slow-cooked onion, pine nuts and aniseed handed out on the streets in the early hours of 20 to 21 June, always alongside bacores, the season's first figs.

Frequently asked questions

What's the most typical dish in Alicante province?

There isn't just one: coastal towns favour rice cooked in fish stock, chiefly arròs a banda and caldero; Xixona and Alcoy run on almonds, with turrón and peladilla; and the mountain interior cooks with a spoon, in stews like olleta or bollitori.

Is Alicante's rice the same as paella?

Not quite. Paella is cooked in a wide, shallow pan, with the rice left dry across the bottom. This province's rice dishes began on fishing boats and are cooked in stock, in a pot rather than a pan — arròs a banda and caldero are the clearest examples.

Where can you buy genuine turrón?

In Xixona, the town where both Turrón de Jijona and Turrón de Alicante originated and where several workshops still sell directly to the public.

What's worth bringing home as a food souvenir?

Turrón or peladilla if passing through Xixona or Alcoy, Vinalopó bagged table grapes in winter, and a bottle of Fondillón for anyone after something that isn't found outside the province.