135 Best Restaurants in Spain

"From market to plate" is this nueva cocina restaurant's philosophy: chefs start and finish the day with an empty larder and a blank menu. The freshest fish and produce are handpicked at the neighboring Mercado de Abastos and coaxed into exciting dishes that defy tradition. Be sure to book ahead as the industrial-chic dining room and terrace fill up fast. 

Adrián Quetglas, an Argentinian-born chef of Mallorcan descent, cooked in some of the finest kitchens in London, Paris, and Moscow before he returned to Mallorca in 2015 to launch this solo venture. Despite being awarded a Michelin star, Quetglas remains committed to the democratization of fine dining and delivering the pleasure of high-end gastronomy to a broader audience. His five-course lunchtime tasting menu is a steal at €55, while seven courses in the evening will set you back €85.

Chef Rafa Zafra’s elegant hodgepodge of a menu features contemporary Catalan fare, French classics like sole meuniere, and dishes inspired by his alma mater, El Bulli. The prices are as jaw-dropping as the dining room, which features soaring ceilings, towering marble columns, ornate chandeliers, and gilded accents galore.

The recipient of a Michelin star annually since 2013 and maintaining the prized triple star since 2018, Ángel León showcases his creative seafood dishes in this unusual restaurant housed in an 18th-century tidal mill whose decor takes you under the sea with fishtail-back chairs and mermaids. Aponiente serves one tasting menu (€215 , wine pairing €100 extra), and you can expect plenty of gastronomic inventions such as pumpkin tacos with anchovy, cuttlefish with potatoes, and rice with plankton and sea cucumber.

Tables can be reserved only 1–2:15 for lunch and 8–9:15 for dinner, and only via the online booking form.

One of the world's great culinary meccas, award-winning Arzak embodies the prestige, novelty, and science-driven creativity of the Basque culinary zeitgeist. The restaurant and its high-tech food lab—both helmed by founder Juan Mari Arzak's daughter Elena—are in the family's 19th-century home on the outskirts of San Sebastián. The ever-changing dishes (€270 for four courses or €300 for the tasting menu) are downright thrilling for their eye-popping presentations, unexpected flavor combinations, and rare ingredients. The best seats in the house are in the newly renovated upstairs dining room.

This idyllic fourth-generation asador in a centuries-old house draws the crowds with its flawless tortilla de bacalao, txuleta de buey, and local game and fish of all kinds such as besugo a la donostiarra (roast sea bream with garlic-vinegar sauce) and, when in season, becada (Eurasian woodcock) cloaked in meaty wine sauce. Fizzy Txakoi is the standard tipple, but there's also a surprisingly deep list of Champagnes and international bottles to choose from.

Of all the three-Michelin-star temples in Spain, Bittor Arginzoniz's Etxebarri is hands down the most exclusive, since it serves only lunch and reservations are limited. Here, grilling is elevated to an art form, with various types of woods, coals, and handmade tools carefully selected for the preparation of each dish. The obligatory €280 tasting menu (no vegetarian option) generally includes Etxebarri classics like homemade chorizo, smoked caviar, and—if you're lucky—baby elvers. 

This jaw-droppingly elegant, award-winning restaurant and hotel, housed in a medieval building redesigned by star architect Mansilla + Tuñón, is the crown jewel of Extremaduran hospitality. The ground-floor restaurant specializes in refined contemporary cooking centered around the Iberian pig and chef Toño Pérez's private garden. The round wine cellar in the basement is an architectural marvel with a backlit Château d'Yquem "temple" that was the site of a $2 million wine heist in 2021 that made international news. There are 14 drool-worthy, high-design hotel rooms above the restaurant (and a rooftop pool), as well as 11 suites across the square in the 16th-century Casa Palacio Paredes Saavedra. 

The immersive gastro-experience at the envelope-pushing eco-restaurant by renowned Basque chef Eneko Atxa starts with nibbles in the indoor garden, continues on to the kitchen with a quick tour, and culminates in the dining room with a tasting menu featuring out-there, conceptual dishes like "rose nectar" and "representing a landscape: honey and a thousand flowers."

Never has an open kitchen in Madrid been so mesmerizing: at Cadaqués, black-clad cooks tend to rows of paella pans sizzling over pluming orange wood embers and flip Flintstones-worthy steaks and whole fish licked by open flame. It feels like the type of rustic experience you'd encounter at the Mediterranean seaside, but Cadaqués sits squarely on Jorge Juan, Madrid's poshest street. Achieving that transportive vibe was no small feat: the chef spent months fishing and cooking with seafaring communities along the coast prior to writing the menu, which features pristine shellfish and raw-bar dishes in addition to the standout rice and grilled mains.

This restaurant takes contemporary decor and fine-dining style and adds the pizzazz of open-kitchen cooking. It's known for its decadent tasting menus, and the star dish is a rich mar i muntanya macaroni with lobster, foie gras, and artichoke. The contemporary decor combines gleaming traditional copper with retro-cool mid-century modern furniture. Wine selections can be added at a surcharge per person. 

Four generations ago, Pablo Cámara turned this 19th-century fishing wharf on the Pasaia narrows into a first-class seafood restaurant with lovely views over the shipping lane. A steaming sopa de pescado (fish soup) is just the ticket on a wet Atlantic day, or try cangrejo del mar (spider crab with vegetable sauce) or the superb hake with salsa verde. A central "live" tank rises and falls with the tide and has lobsters and crayfish that can be hauled up for your inspection.

Fusing traditional Galician cuisine with Japanese, Mexican, and Peruvian, among others, Casa Marcelo whips up creatively plated dishes in an open-plan kitchen. The jovial dining area—always full and always loud—seats guests at long communal tables, a nod to the fact that the dishes are meant to be shared.

Pine walls and floors, red-and-white-check curtains, and flowy white tablecloths furnish this stuck-in-time restaurant in the gray-stone village of Gessa between Vielha and Salardú. Try the grilled venison with honey sauce or the local baked river trout. Book ahead online as hours are unpredictable.

Don't be put off by the outdated decor of this Parte Vieja icon—the kitchen at Casa Urola is easily one of the city's most adroit, whether you post up at the informal bar or sit down to a multicourse meal. In the dining room, savor appetizers made with hard-to-find regional vegetables like cardoon, borage, and caviar-like de lágrima peas before moving onto entrées like seared squab, presented with a pâté of its own liver, and roasted hake loin, served with white wine and clams. Save room for the signature torrija, custardy fried bread crisped in brown butter and dusted with cinnamon sugar.

The city's most veteran Michelin-star restaurant (renewed annually since 2012), El Choco has renowned chef Kisko Garcia at the helm whipping up innovative dishes based on his 10 commandments to preserve good cooking. One of them is that taste always comes first, and that plays out well during a meal at this minimalist restaurant with charcoal-colored walls, glossy parquet floors, and dishes offering new sensations and amazing presentations. You start dinner in the entrance lounge and then move into the kitchen to watch a dish being prepared before you go to your table. Two tasting menus are available (from €120), with plenty of tasty creative surprises. Allow three hours for your meal. Take a cab; El Choco is outside the city center to the east and not easy to find.

The word compartir means “to share” and this excellent restaurant bases its menu on a small-plate sharing approach that has been taken to another level by the culinary team of Mateu Casañas, Oriol Castro, and Eduard Xatruch (who also run Barcelona's three-Michelin-starred Disfrutar). Each dish is served by attentive staff within an 18th-century courtyard.

With a "short" 10-course tasting menu priced at just €58 (the longer one is €82 for 14 courses) Cruix is the fine-dining restaurant for people who don't want to spend hundreds of euros on a meal. Everything here is laid-back and unpretentious, including the exposed-brick interior, but the quality speaks to the Chef Miquel Pardo's pedigree: he worked under Spanish superstar chefs like Albert Adrià and Jordi Cruz before opening Cruix in 2017. 

The modern wood-paneled dining room and warm lighting form the perfect setting for the creative Andalusian cuisine cooked here by local chef Lola Marín, who learned her trade with some of Spain's top chefs, such as Martín Berasategui. The eight-course tasting menu changes weekly (cold and hot starters, fish, meat, and dessert), and you can opt for wine pairings.

One of the buzziest restaurants in Madrid, this modern seafood mecca—with sleek wooden tables and floor-to-ceiling windows—serves rare delicacies from the country's top fishing fleets. On the ever-changing menu, you might find quisquillas de Motril (sweet white shrimp with bright blue roe), precious little elvers, or Basque lobster stew—all accompanied by wines selected by Sergio Otero, of DiverXO fame.

Local culinary wunderkind Santi Taura is using his eponymous restaurant in the El Llorenç Parc de la Mar hotel to explore historical recipes of the island, served in an ultrachic, contemporary setting. Some of the most emblematic dishes include panada de peix de roca—a "Mallorcan dim sum" of rockfish pie, believed to be one of the oldest recipes on the island—and a dish of rabbit with lobster, which combines the sea and the mountains. Try to sit at the counter, where the charismatic chef presents his creations in three languages.

Three former head chefs from the legendary former best restaurant in the world El Bulli combined their considerable talents to create this roller-coaster ride of culinary fun (the word "disfrutar" is Spanish for "to enjoy") spotlighting tasting menus of dazzling inventiveness and good taste. Bowls are swirled to reveal beetroot meringues emerging from sesame-seed "earth" (the seeds are made to look like soil), and jellied truffle-and-egg tempura hit the bull's-eye of pure pleasure; desserts are otherworldly. No wonder, then, that the three chefs now hold their own spot close to the top of the World's 50 Best Restaurants list.

Holder of three Michelin stars since 2009, El Celler de Can Roca, helmed by the Roca brothers—Joan, Josep, and Jordi—is a life-changing culinary experience. Its two tasting menus, ranging from 14 to 22 courses and priced between €240 and €280, feature wildly inventive dishes and daring presentations, but remain rooted to local flavors.

Just 1½ km (1 mile) north of town, this restaurant—housed within a rather nondescript hotel—has been hailed as the birthplace of modern Catalan cuisine and is a beacon for gourmands. The hyperlocal menu changes with the seasons and features such dishes as eggplant with anchovies from Cadaqués, stewed chicken with morels plucked from the Collserola mountains, and a vanilla tart topped with strawberries from nearby Vilafant.

This low-ceiling dining room filled with plush armchairs, starched white tablecloths, and colorful bouquets is a welcoming spot to feast on refined Asturian dishes like sea urchin gratin, morels stuffed with truffled foie gras, pheasant with braised green beans, and suckling lamb confit. Weather permitting, you can request a patio table to watch Madrid's one percent parade down Calle de Jorge Juan. For power lunches and special-occasion meals, El Paraguas delivers every time.

Lanzarote sweet potato ensaladilla (salade Olivier), Iberian pork risotto with green mojo aioli, artichoke confit with cured egg yolks—these are a few palate-bending dishes you'll find on the menu at El Santo, one of Gran Canaria's most exciting fusion spots. Rustic stone walls give the restaurant an intimate, relaxed feel, while the white tablecloths and professional waiters make it feel like a special occasion.

Ever since Anthony Bourdain waxed poetic about award-winning Elkano's grilled turbot on Parts Unknown, the dish has become something of a holy grail among in-the-know foodies. Order the famous flatfish (ideally at its fatty prime in May and June), and you'll receive what Bourdain called an "anatomy lesson" as the maître d' extols the virtues of each separate cut, culminating with the gelatinous fins---which you're encouraged to suck between your fingers, caveman style.

The sleek white-on-white dining room inside the Hotel Arts sets the tone for chef Pérez's contemporary take on Mediterranean cuisine. Tasting menus present around a dozen courses, most with a seasonal, seafood-centric focus, like a sea cucumber pasta with bone marrow and young artichokes. If your wallet allows, indulge in a wine pairing, which includes some wonderful surprises like a Spanish-made sake. Exemplary service and a posh location make this a true two-Michelin-star experience.

On a bank overlooking the Garonne, the white-tablecloth, tile-floor Era Coquèla is a Vielha institution, beloved by local families, repeat vacationers, and even truck drivers passing through town. Roast meats, civets (wine-and-game stews), and seasonal vegetable dishes are native-son chef Marc Nus's strongest suits—all are served by an enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff.

Originally a flour mill, this is the oldest building in the village of Sant Climent, and both the atmosphere and the food are exceptional. Taste seasonal dishes, including prawn carpaccio with cured Mahón cheese and guacamole, black paella with monkfish and squid, and carrilleras de ternera (beef cheeks) with potato. End with some local cheese, ice cream, and figs. In summer, book a table on the terrace. You'll know what to drink with a brewery on the premises, visible behind glass.