Top Places to Dine in Alicante

As this semester comes to an end, I wanted to list some of my favorite restaurants that I’ve found in Alicante! Although many days I shopped at the Mercadona or Corte Ingles for my groceries, sometimes I explored what Alicante’s restaurants had to offer. Of course, there are the well-known tapas that Spain is notable for, but I also found other types of cuisine. I splurged a little more when guests or family came to visit me so that I could visit some of the higher-end restaurants. With my friends, we chose the more affordable options to not break our bank account!

One of the most popular and well-known places we go to eat is D’Tablas! This isn’t just any tapas place though…The tapas cost 1 euro each and are served on wooden bricks to keep track of how many you order (because, believe me, you will order more than one). The restaurant is typically packed with visitors, locals, and especially college students looking to have a fun (and cheap) time out. Typically, the tapas include fried cheese, eggs on toast, sausage, and more.

My favorite tapas place that has more sophisticated tasting tapas is Cerveceria Sento Rambla! The tapas here cost 2 euros and 30 cents, so they are a very reasonable price. My favorite part of this restaurant? The different flavored sauces on all their items! From a burger with sesame sauce to meatballs with a peanut sauce, there is something you've never tried before but surely will enjoy.

A higher-end restaurant that tastes as good as it sounds is La Taberna del Gourmet. This restaurant has a variety of food, including fish, meat, pasta, and salads. The bread platter comes with bread, meat, olives, and cheese. Each one of my friends chose something different and we were all more than impressed with our meals.

A cuisine I had never tried before was Lebanese food, and when I came across Mish Mish that’s what I found. Mish Mish has affordable prices. Start with an appetizer of pita bread with any of their hummus choices; there are about 10 different hummuses, each with unique flavors. For my meal, I had a chicken wrap that tasted fresh, light, and flavorful. They also have many vegan and vegetarian options.

We can’t forget BRUNCH! The absolute go-to place for brunch and breakfast items is Baker & Co. They offer numerous breakfast items from yogurt with fresh fruit to pancakes with chocolate (or maple syrup AKA my favorite) to egg sandwiches. This restaurant offers fresh-squeezed orange juice and more coffee and tea than you could ever need.

Now…I can’t talk about food without talking about GELATO! Although I have tried many different gelato places, Borgonesse has always won the taste test. They have flavors that anyone would enjoy from fruit sorbets to chocolate and vanilla mixes. My personal favorite is the Kinder Bueno, which has a delicious chocolate, hazelnut, vanilla mixture with pieces of kinder wafers mixed in! There also happens to be a Ferrero Rocher flavor that almost tops the Kinder Bueno, in my opinion. If you’re not feeling ice cream, they also sell crepes with various fillings like Nutella or lemon and sugar!

I hope you can try some of these restaurants because they truly are unique and impressive in their own ways. Not only are there the infamous tapas restaurants in town, but there are also different cuisines from Italian, Asian, Lebanese, and more! Although I could list off many more places that I’ll miss while back in the United States, these are the restaurants I consider a MUST on my list.