Restaurant in Alacant, Spain
Multi-room tasting menus, high commitment required.
Espacio Montoro is Alicante's most theatrical dining proposition: a €€€€ Michelin Plate restaurant where guests progress through four distinctly designed rooms — each with its own aromas and visual concept — alongside Chef Pablo Montoro's creative Mediterranean tasting menus. Book it for the format as much as the food. For straightforward fine dining at the same price, Baeza & Rufete is the safer call.
At the €€€€ price point, Espacio Montoro is one of Alicante's most deliberate dining commitments. You are not paying purely for food: you are paying for a structured, multi-room experience where each space — Black Tech, Hi Line, Cocoon Lab, and Geoda Verde — has its own visual design, lighting, and curated aromas built around Chef Pablo Montoro's creative Mediterranean tasting menus. If that format excites you, it is worth the outlay. If you want a direct fine-dining dinner with great food and a quiet room, you are better served by Baeza & Rufete, which delivers comparable ambition at the same price tier without the theatrical scaffolding.
Espacio Montoro holds a Michelin Plate for 2024 and 2025, which signals cooking that meets Michelin's quality threshold without yet reaching star level. That is a useful calibration: expect technically accomplished, inventive food rather than the kind of precision that defines destinations like Quique Dacosta in Dénia or El Celler de Can Roca in Girona. What Espacio Montoro does differently is build the entire visit around spatial progression , guests move between rooms as the menu advances, so the atmosphere shifts alongside the courses. The sensory design is immersive: aromas are matched to each room's concept, and the decor changes dramatically from one space to the next. This is not a background experience. The room is the point.
The menu structure gives you five tasting options: Raíces, Alturas y Mareas, three Experiencia menus priced at different levels, and the Cocoon Lab Experience, which is designed to be taken at the Cocoon Lab bar itself. The Cocoon Lab format is the closest equivalent to a private or counter-dining setup , seated at the bar within that specific room, it offers a more immersive and personalised interaction with the kitchen's output than the main multi-room progression. For groups seeking something that feels distinct from a standard tasting menu, requesting the Cocoon Lab Experience is the more memorable call. The confirmed dishes from Michelin's record include trompe l'oeil vegetable sausages and an onion royale with fermented onion skin jelly, grapefruit, potato, and crayfish , dishes that are playful and technically grounded, Mediterranean in ingredient but unconventional in execution. The ceramic tableware is produced in-house, made by hand in the building's basement, which adds a coherent layer of craft to the overall concept.
The restaurant sits on Avenida Albufereta in the Albufereta district, north of Alicante's historic centre and closer to the coastline than the old town. This is not a walk from the main tourist drag , plan for a taxi or a deliberate drive. The Google rating of 4.7 across 700 reviews is a meaningful trust signal at this price level, suggesting the experience consistently delivers against expectations.
Multi-room format makes Espacio Montoro a natural fit for groups, but the private experience here differs from what most venues offer. Rather than a sealed private room, you get spatial separation through the sequential room structure itself , each space accommodates small parties and provides a degree of physical and visual privacy from other diners. The Cocoon Lab bar is the closest the venue comes to a dedicated private dining format: a contained setting within one of the concept rooms, suited to couples or small groups who want an intimate, counter-style experience with more interaction and a tighter sense of enclosure. For larger private events or fully sealed buyouts, confirm directly with the venue since no formal private dining policy appears in the public record. For comparison, Alba and Celeste y Don Carlos are other Alicante options worth checking if a traditional private room is the priority.
Booking at Espacio Montoro is rated Easy. Demand in Alicante's fine-dining tier is not at the level of Arzak or Azurmendi, where waits of months are standard, but calling ahead one to two weeks for a weekend table is prudent, especially if you want to specify a particular tasting menu or the Cocoon Lab bar slot. No phone number or website appears in the current public record, so the most reliable approach is to contact the venue through its listed address at Av. Albufereta, 13, or to use a booking aggregator that lists the property. For dress code, the €€€€ price point and the structured theatrical format suggest smart-casual at minimum , the immersive room design rewards effort. No formal dress code has been confirmed, but arriving underdressed would read as a mismatch for the setting.
Within Alicante's creative dining options, Espacio Montoro occupies a distinct position, but it is worth placing it accurately. Baeza & Rufete is the more obvious benchmark for €€€€ creative cooking in the city , refined, technically serious, and without the theatrical layer. If great food in a focused setting is your goal, Baeza & Rufete is probably the safer bet. Espacio Montoro is the right call when the format itself is part of what you are after. Further up the coast, Quique Dacosta in Dénia operates at a significantly higher level of culinary ambition and carries three Michelin stars, so if the trip allows it and budget is secondary, that is the regional ceiling. Internationally, the sensory-immersive format at Espacio Montoro shares some DNA with experiences at venues like Jordnær in Gentofte or Arpège in Paris , but those are star-level propositions at significantly higher prices. Espacio Montoro's value case is real: a multi-sensory creative tasting experience at €€€€ in a Spanish coastal city is well-priced relative to what comparable concepts charge in Paris or Copenhagen.
For Alicante dining beyond this price tier, Distrikt41 and El Portal Alicante are worth knowing. And if you are spending time in the region, our full Alacant restaurants guide covers the broader picture, alongside guides to hotels, bars, wineries, and experiences in Alacant.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Booking Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Espacio Montoro | Creative | €€€€ | Easy |
| Baeza & Rufete | Modern Cuisine | €€€€ | Unknown |
| La Taberna del Gourmet | Gastrobar-Seafood, Regional Cuisine | € | Unknown |
| Nou Manolín | Spanish, Farm to table | €€€ | Unknown |
| El Portal Taberna & Wines | Tapas Bar | €€ | Unknown |
| Piripi | Rice Dishes | €€€ | Unknown |
What to weigh when choosing between Espacio Montoro and alternatives.
Two to three weeks ahead is a reasonable buffer for most dates, though weekend slots at the €€€€ price point fill faster. Demand here is not at the level of Spain's starred destinations, so last-minute openings do exist — but the multi-room format limits covers per service, which tightens availability more than the Alicante market alone would suggest. Book directly via the venue's website or contact channel as soon as your dates are fixed.
The five tasting menus — Raíces, Alturas y Mareas, the Cocoon Lab Experience, and Experiencias 1, 2 and 3 — are structured around Chef Pablo Montoro's creative, produce-led cooking, which makes significant substitutions harder to accommodate than at a la carte venues. Flag any dietary requirements at the time of booking, not on arrival. If you have severe restrictions, call ahead to confirm which menus can be adapted before committing to the €€€€ spend.
The immersive, room-to-room format — moving through Black Tech, Hi Line, Cocoon Lab and Geoda Verde — sits closer to an event than a traditional fine-dining room, so the dress expectation follows suit: polished but not stiffly formal. Think well-dressed casual or business casual rather than black tie. Overly casual dress would feel out of place at this price point.
There is no a la carte — you choose one of five tasting menus, priced differently across Experiencia 1, 2 and 3, Raíces, Alturas y Mareas, and the Cocoon Lab Experience. The Michelin Plate recognises dishes like the trompe l'oeil vegetable sausages and the onion royale with fermented onion skin jelly, grapefruit, potato and crayfish. The Cocoon Lab bar menu is worth considering if you want the kitchen's output in a shorter, more informal format.
The Cocoon Lab bar experience is the most practical solo option — counter-format dining within the broader multi-room concept, which avoids the slight awkwardness of occupying a full private space alone. Solo diners at the €€€€ level who want the full room progression should confirm whether single-cover bookings are accepted for the main menus, as the personalised, room-by-room format is designed with groups in mind.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
