This is the only Michelin-starred restaurant in Alicante: a menu featuring seaweed, seawater and sea fennel

In addition to being a tourist destination with clean beaches and good weather, Alicante It is a food tasting center. Like a little. Its traditional cuisine, with Rice and the best fresh fish As protagonists, they join a very diverse offer of international restaurants and integrated proposals that allow you to travel the world without leaving the table. Michelin Guidefamous for its careful selection of gastronomic establishments, highlights several restaurants in the city of Alicante on its list, one of which even has one of its valuable stars hanging on its door.

It’s about the restaurant. Payza and Rovitia small, simple place run by Joaquin BaezaIn front of the fireplace, Esther Castillowho works as a room manager and bartender. Its location may surprise those who meet it for the first time. Far from the hustle and bustle of tourism. In the middle of this coastal cityBaeza & Rufete is located in San Juan, a rather isolated summer residential area, and like its neighbors, has other buildings occupied by neighborhood bars and other businesses. A modest setting for one of the best kitchens in the entire province of Alicante.

It has a very simple decor and a nice terrace that gives access to the interior that welcomes just under ten people per shift. They are all carefully served by the chef and waiter, who explain every detail of the tasting menu that has earned them fame in gastronomic lists and guides. Not only from Michelin – which he gave them His first star in 2021-, but also from Repsol Guide And other awards and competitions such as Best Young Chef of the Valencian Community in 2002 or Best Chef of the Year in 2014 (Salón Alimentaria de Barcelona).

Its name, Baeza and Rufete, is a tribute to Joaquín Baeza’s mother and father, to his beginnings and the flavours of yesteryear that they themselves taught him. This tradition, rooted in the products of the sea and land of Alicante, is updated thanks to the “continuous study and research” that the chef and his team analyze the environment through.

Passion, good cooking and a stick. These are the unmistakable virtues of those who They have been trained with Martín Berasategui.Three characteristics that Joaquín Baeza reflects in his own kitchen. Before starting his own business, the chef worked for the Basque chef in his restaurants, an apprenticeship that gives good clues about the quality of what is tasted in his current project. Baeza explains on his restaurant’s website that the key to his kitchen is “playing with imagination, dedication and creating cohesive and delicious dishes.”

Its gastronomic proposition is modern Mediterranean cuisine, which explores seasonal Alicante products based on several common themes. On the one hand, aromatic herbs such as SamphireWhich the chef himself collects on the beach. Also lemon, basil, flowering thyme, mint, spearmint, lemongrass… On the other hand, Olive oils To which they give the utmost importance, options with character and quality such as Diez+de oro or Capilla del fraile. Furthermore, the chef’s cuisine in Alicante includes two ingredients that give his dishes a very unique character: Algae and sea water.

All this is summed up in two tasting menus, one short (€95) and one long (€165), which are complemented by several pairing options, either with three wines (€35), five (€68), seven (€35), one (€95) or eleven (€150).