3 Best Restaurants in Sitges, Catalonia, Valencia, and the Costa Blanca

There’s almost always a line outside this old-school, family-owned tapas bar, a local favorite since its founding in 1940. If you can’t get a table, sidle up to the long wood bar, choose from the display of bite-size, toothpick-speared pintxos and eat them standing, or walk one minute down Carrer d’Angel Vidal to its terrace-restaurant, Els Jardins del Retiro, for an excellent outdoor prix-fixe lunch deal.

This legendary seaside spot opened in 1913 and spawned the term that’s given to similar bars dotting the Spanish coast. There’s nothing particularly outstanding about the food—typical seafood tapas, much of it fried—but the waterfront terrace is ideal for soaking up the sun and more than a century of history.

Carved into a rocky point above Playa Sant Sebastiá, the multilevel Vivero is actually three distinct spaces: a casual, alfresco tapas spot up top; a swankier "beach club" at the bottom; and sandwiched between is a bilevel indoor/outdoor restaurant, with a wide variety of seafood dishes and paellas. Whichever you choose, the real reason to come is for the magnificent views, especially at sunset.