We’ve moved on from Valencia to the Posada Del Mar hotel facing the marina in Denia. A few months ago I had booked a table in El Baret and we had dinner there last night. There are only about 12 tables; decor is what you might think of as Shabby chic." It’s located in a lovely old stone building on a corner in the center of Denia. By 9pm, every table was filled with Spanish speaking guests and a few who spoke other European languages but (the ones I spoke to) lived in Denia or Javea.
What struck me first was the overwhelmingly warm welcome offered by the female co-owner, the wife of Miguel, and the female server, who covers the tables with only one other staff member. I was hugged and kissed many times and always met with real smiles.
There is a fairly long set menu and also more than a dozen daily specials, many of which have inventive names, or names of dishes particular to this region, so you need to ask staff what they contain. But they are exceedingly willing and eager to help.
Most of the dishes contains fish or shellfish so, of course, I/we were very limited in what I chose. Here is a snapshot of the restaurant and what we ordered:
Exterior; short walk from hotel:
Specials, followed by the 2-page carta and fuera de carta dishes:
About six of the carta items were not available that night:
Entrtante: Papas fritas, home-made, with salsa de berberechos (if I heard this correctly)
Dining room on Wednesday in November:
Was this the best dish I’ve had on the trip so far? Probably. Pastiset de higado de path y boniato. It’s duck foie sandwiched between two slightly sweet cracker-like ends. I thought I detected apple in the compote on the edges but the menu says sweet potato. The wait person advised us to get one each, not two as I wanted, but when the boss came around to take the actual order, she huffed and told us “NO!! One each will be good for you”. We each had one but I could have devoured four of these and called it a night. This is essential if you dine here; it’s one of their signature plates:
"Mosquito,: crisp fried tiny shrimp and the tiniest crabs I’ve seen…a mound of crispness but the actual critters are so tiny you can’t really taste them. You are instructed to eat the entire creature, legs and all, which is very easy. Nice ailioli sauce, but it was too huge for me to eat more than a bit.
Creative and delicious white eggplant with goat cheese, a long rectangle of. honeycomb, and a thin layer of something that was bruleed. Another essential dish, one of the best eggplant dishes I’ve had in Spain.
For my partner; a giant silver box with a round depression on the top, filled with sweetly marinated strips of pluma de iberico jamon. A the four corners are perfectly fried bunuelos filled with pulverized cooked fennel and a plant from the sea whose name I did not catch. They were amazingly tasty!!
I had one glass of Mestela, and water. The bill totaled a very reasonable 70-euro-plus. They are famed for their cheesecake but I could not stuff another morsel into my mouth. Highly recommended but maybe skip the mosquito.
