This restaurant was recommended by a Valencian friend and it is a great place to go for traditional Spanish home cooking and great value.

Inside it's decorated with painted Spanish tiles and you can see the food being prepared in the open kitchen. There's a range of typical tapas, seafood and meat dishes - it was good for children as they had some plain dishes like steak, grilled chicken or fish and also some more adventurous things including Paella.

It's tucked down a small street behind the ceramics museum in the Palacio Marques de Dos Aguas but is worth hunting out.

You can see my review and photos on my blog; heatheronhertravels.blogspot.com/2008/04/evening-out-with-angel-in-valencia.html

Restaurante La Utielana, Plaza Picadero de Dos Aguas, San Andres 4, Valencia, Tel 963529414 (The road is just behind Palacio Marques de Dos Aguas)

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La Beneficencia is a free museum, and if you walk through the shady inner courtyard, you'll find the restaurant for a great value set lunch at €9.

Service starts at 2pm although I'd arrive a little earlier and have a drink as it is very popular with the locals.

For €9 you get 3 courses of excellent modern cooking and there are 3 choices per course. To give you an example of what we ate; Salad of salt cod, chicken in a curried sauce with wild rice (or Valencian Paella), Coconut cream with pieapple and lemon sorbet. It was all delicious.

You can see my write-up and photos on my blog: heatheronhertravels.blogspot.com/2008/04/lunch-at-la-beneficencia-in-valencia.html

Museo de Prehistoria y de la Culturas de Valencia (La Beneficencia)
Calle Corona 36. You'll find it in all the guidebooks - it's next to the Institito Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM).
www.museuprehistoriavalencia.es/

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We stayed over at La Casa Azul which is right in front of the central market and we found this lovely new Gastronomik tapas bar/restaurant called Tapa2.

We were amazed at what we got - five courses of pure delight, all served with different drinks to wet the palette.

The owner Eduardo Phillips Blanco (you would be surprised to find out he is English, with that name) and head chef Michael Baering not only provided and served some of the best food we have ever eaten but also entertained us.

Our meal cost us 35 euros each and that was with all drink included, they do a deal with three tapas dishes and a bottle of vino for 15 euros most nights though.

Find them off the beaten track, near La Lonja, not the best setting but the restaurant is cool and funky and it hasn't copped on with the Spanish yet.

Carda6, Barrio del Carmen, Valencia
+34 663 875 903
www.tapa2gastronomik.es (not up and running yet)

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Close to Plaza de la Virgen down a very quiet alley is this unassuming rather dark restaurant. Excellent food, with a choice of either the €12 lunch of the day or a special Dégustacion menu (which everyone has to choose) for €18. Very good quality modern Valencian cooking.

C / Conquista 3
Tel: 963 910 364

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Paella takeaway just off the Plaza del Ayuntamiento. Heretical though it may be to eat paella on the hoof, the above place came in very handy when we were about to leave for the airport and still hadn't sampled Paella Valenciana.

Calle Padilla, 1
Tel 00 34 96 394 44 16

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This is Valencia's main food market and it's a fabulous place to spend the morning wandering around.

It's a colourful and vibrant market with all kinds of wonderful fresh foods on display. Like many places, seeing this market in operation gives a special insight into the ordinary lives of the people of Valencia.

It's a fine building too and the ceiling is very ornate.

www.mercadocentralvalencia.es/

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Excellent choice of tapas costing only 1.60 euros each.

San vicente matir 6 - 46002 Valencia
Tel: 96 391 68

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L’hamadriada is the stand out new restaurant in Valencia for my money. Serving outstanding grilled meats and rice it’s much more upmarket looking than its modest prices might suggest (€9-€17 three-course menu del dia and tasting menus from €22-€35), cool staff and you get your food pronto (not always the case in Valencia). The location is fantastic — very central but down a side street out of earshot from all the mooked up party noise.

Plaza Vicente Iborra 3
Tel: +963 260 891
www.hamadriada.com

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Everyone raves about Barcelona’s famous La Boqueria market but Valencia’s is both bigger and better. The modernista building of stained glass and wrought iron is stunning, but it’s the array of produce, especially the wealth of fresh glistening seafood, that steals the show. If you’re staying in a hotel you’ll regret it if you visit Central - you'll want to take the lot home for dinner.

Open until 2.30pm, Plaza del Mercado.

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The market is fab to wander around anyway, but you can eat a lovely breakfast at one of the stalls at the back of the market and watch the shopping activity from the comfort of your stool.

Mercado Central
Plaza del Mercado, 6, Valencia, Spain

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A brilliant mussels tapas bar tiled beautifully. Stand at the bar and drop the shells down into the waiting buckets.

Barman tetchy if you just order beer though, he started muttering to us about the stag group that came in just for a drink. The bar is also on the square which joins the main tapas/hanging around strip.

13 Moro Zeit 13
Valencia
46001
Phone: +34 96 391 0497

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Essentially this is a bread stick sandwich with the typical Spanish potato omelette. The aspect that makes it different in Valencia is that the bread is liberally spread/loaded with alioli - a garlic mayonnaise which is just perfect for the aforementioned sandwich.

Anywhere in the city of Valencia. My favourite was a bar down one of the side streets near the train station. It was called Bar Turia. Well worthwhile - a good beer with the sandwich dripping garlic at a decent price.

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For traditional Valencian dishes such as paella Valenciana and arroz a banda (a seafood rice dish), head for El Forcat restaurant in El Carmen.

Roteros, 12 - Five minutes from
Torres de los Serranos.
Tel: 34 96 391 1213

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Paelltertainment. The twice-weekly paella-cooking presentation on the roof of Home Backpackers is less a gastronomic than a comic experience, as the resident chef regales his audience with a mix of instructions and anecdotes in (deliberately, you suspect) awful Spanglish. And all that while cooking up a giant, delicious version of this quintessential Valenciano dish – served with a cold beer and a joke.

When? Tuesday and Sunday evenings.
Where? Roof terrace of Home Backpackers.
Address: Plaza Vicente Iborra, Barrio del Carmen.
Telephone: (34-96) 3913797.
Website: www.likeathome.net

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Small but lively, this teeny-tiny bar feels crowded with just a couple of people in it. But by some kind of loaves-and-fishes, there seems to be room for more and more. Tapas, cold beer, and good company make it worth the squeeze.

Address: Calle Sant Tomeu 21, Barrio del Carme.
Telephone: (34-606) 721842.

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The home of tapas, Spain is hardly unaccustomed to the concept of small and fast when it comes to food. But at times the idea of tapas far exceeds the reality of salty fish swimming in brine, or meat that has been sitting out on a counter all day long. But at Sagardi you get the benefit of small portions and loads of variety, but all freshly prepared and full of flavour. It’s a bite-sized treat.

Address: San Vicente Martir 6, Valencia 46002.
Location: Just off Plaza de la Reina.
Telephone: (34-96) 3910668
Website: www.sagardi.com

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If you've eaten enough tortilla (I love the stuff, but one has a limit!), then head here for some great veggie tapas and also main meals.

Closed on Sunday and Monday for dinner.

Calle Salvador Giner 6, near Plaza del Carmen (north of Barrio del Carmen).

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Traditional and delicious. The hot chocolate, eaten with little doughnuts (bunuelos), natch, is thick enough to remind you of school days’ chocolate custard. If you're hot, drink horchata (orxata in Valenciano), icy-sweet and refreshing drink. Particularly nice drunk in the traditionally tiled horchaterias around town.

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A luxurious, well-known seafood restaurant with plush interiors and a vast tank of lobsters and crabs so you can choose your own victim for dinner. Dinner costs around €50 per head.

There are two branches, one at Calle Lérida, 11 y 13 and the other right in the town centre at Calle Mossen Fernandez, 10; www.marisqueriascivera.com

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Vintara, on bustling Plaza de la Reina, belies the rule that restaurants on major tourist thoroughfares are stiffly priced and low on quality. Vintara is neither – it offers earthy but delicious traditional Spanish cooking, using all the best local ingredients. Meat eaters will love the Morcilla con Mousselina de Ibérico. For a full meal with wine, expect to pay around €25-30 per head.

Vintara, Plaza de la Reina, 19

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