What to eat in Valencia

What you eat in Valencia depends on the hour: the esmorzaret at about ten, paella at noon, horchata with fartons in the afternoon. A menu that offers paella in the evening, or with mussels, sausage and meat in one pan, was written for visitors.

Paella, and why it is midday

Paella began as a field meal for workers in the Albufera: cooked over wood, eaten at noon and made from whatever was at hand — chicken, rabbit, sometimes snails, and garrofó and ferradura beans. That is why in Valencia it is lunch rather than dinner, and why serious places want at least twenty minutes' notice, since it is made from raw rice. The socarrat, the caught crust at the bottom of the pan, is the best part and is scraped up deliberately; if there is none, the rice was cooked too fast.

The esmorzaret, the ten o'clock pause

At about ten in the morning Valencia does not drink coffee but eats the esmorzaret: a large sandwich with olives, cacaus del collaret peanuts, pickled peppers and a drink, all for one price. It is not breakfast but the pause between breakfast and lunch, and the places that serve it are full of workers at ten and empty at one. Cabeza, blanc i negre and titaina are the classic fillings, and since 2015 the best is chosen every year at the Cacau d'Or awards — the winners come from the whole region, but the list still makes a good list of addresses.

3 daysWhere these meals fit into the three-day plan:Valencia in 3 days →

What to order

• Arròs a banda and fideuà — rice cooked in fish stock, and the version made with short noodles instead of rice. Both are seafood dishes and both are legitimate, unlike mixed paella.
• Horchata with fartons — a cold, thick tiger-nut drink with long soft pastries for dipping. It is also drunk in Alboraya, north of the city, where the tiger nuts are grown.
• Agua de Valencia — a cocktail of orange, cava and spirits. Ordered by the jug for the table, and more innocent-looking than it is.
• Buñuelos de calabaza — fried pumpkin fritters, a winter thing and inseparable from the Fallas.

Where and when

• El Palmar — a village in the middle of the Albufera, city bus 24 or 25. Paella here is cooked over wood; you go for lunch and plan it as half a day.
• Ruzafa — the quarter south of the centre, with the Mercat de Russafa and streets of new places around it.
• The Mercat de Colón — a modernista market hall turned into cafés; it stays open later than the Mercat Central and is good for horchata in the afternoon.
• Cabanyal — the fishing quarter by the beach, where you eat fish rather than rice.

Hidden gemsWhat the city keeps off the main list, from a Roman forum to the tiger-nut fields:Valencia off the main axis: gates you can climb and the frescoes of San Nicolás →