Restaurant in Castelló de la Plana, Spain
International cooking with a point of view.
Alessandro Maino holds a Michelin Plate in both 2024 and 2025, making it the most credible choice for a serious dinner in Castelló de la Plana at the €€ price tier. The kitchen runs on international technique drawn from the chef's training in Italy, France, Switzerland, and Spain, with à la carte, a flexible lunch menu, and a more creative tasting menu that requires advance booking. A 4.7 Google rating across 329 reviews confirms the consistency.
Alessandro Maino is the right call for food-curious visitors to Castelló de la Plana who want a restaurant with a point of view rather than a safe crowd-pleaser. At the €€ price tier, it delivers a genuinely international menu rooted in the chef's training across Italy, France, Switzerland, and Spain — a combination that gives the kitchen a broader palette than most of what you'll find in this city. It earns a Michelin Plate in both 2024 and 2025, which at this price point is a meaningful signal: the cooking is technically considered and consistent enough to pass repeated Michelin scrutiny. If you are in Castelló for one serious dinner, this is the most credible answer. If you are in the city for several nights, it rewards a second visit , the à la carte menu and the tasting menu are distinct enough experiences to justify returning.
The restaurant sits on Avenida Rei En Jaume, one of Castelló's main central arteries, which makes it logistically easy to find whether you're arriving from the old town or from a central hotel. The interior reads as contemporary without being cold , a modern room in a city that leans more traditional in its dining aesthetic. That contrast is part of the point: the setting signals that you are eating somewhere that has made deliberate choices about what it wants to be, rather than defaulting to regional convention. For the food-focused traveller, the room functions correctly: it lets the plate do the work. See our full Castelló de la Plana restaurants guide for broader context on where Alessandro Maino sits in the city's dining picture.
The kitchen runs two distinct tracks, and understanding this distinction is the most useful thing to know before you book. The first is à la carte service, where the menu covers the international range the chef built across his training years. The Michelin inspectors specifically called out prawns in different textures as a highlight , one of the few dish-level references in the public record, and a useful anchor if you are ordering blind. The second track is a more creative tasting menu, which requires advance booking and represents the kitchen operating at its most ambitious. There is also a lunch menu that adjusts in scope depending on the number of starters chosen, which makes it a flexible entry point at lower commitment.
For a multi-visit strategy: use the first visit for à la carte to calibrate the kitchen's range and identify the dishes that interest you most. Use a second visit to book the tasting menu in advance, which gives you the kitchen's extended creative argument in sequence rather than as individual choices. The lunch menu is the lowest-friction option if you want a taste of the cooking without committing to a full evening. That is a sensible sequence for anyone spending two or three days in Castelló , and it's more useful than treating any single visit as definitive.
The international framing here is not marketing shorthand. Italian technique, French classical structure, Swiss precision, and Spanish product literacy are genuinely different registers, and a kitchen that has absorbed all four has access to a wider range of solutions on the plate. That breadth is what separates Alessandro Maino from the more locally focused options in the city. For comparison points at the leading end of Spanish cooking that use similar cross-cultural training as a foundation, see Quique Dacosta in Dénia or El Celler de Can Roca in Girona , both operate at a different scale and price, but they illustrate how European training breadth translates into culinary range. Other high-end international references in the broader category include Cocina Hermanos Torres in Barcelona, Arzak in San Sebastián, Azurmendi in Larrabetzu, and Martin Berasategui in Lasarte-Oria. Alessandro Maino operates at a fraction of those price points, but the ambition in the tasting menu is pointed in the same direction. For international fine dining at comparable price positioning in other contexts, TRB - Temple Restaurant Beijing and Marcel von Winckelmann in Passau offer useful reference points for what €€ international cuisine looks like when it is executed with real intent.
Booking difficulty is easy. Alessandro Maino does not require the weeks-in-advance planning that a starred restaurant demands, but if you want the tasting menu specifically, book it ahead , the Michelin record notes it must be arranged in advance, and showing up and asking for it on the night is unlikely to work. À la carte and the lunch menu are accessible without the same lead time. There is no phone number or website in the public record, so the most reliable booking route is to ask your hotel concierge to call ahead, or to use a local reservation platform. Hours are not published in our current data, so confirm before travelling , this is a practical step worth taking for any restaurant in a mid-sized Spanish city where lunch and dinner service windows can be narrow.
Dress code is not formally stated, but the contemporary room and Michelin Plate recognition suggest smart casual is the correct register. Nothing that reads as beachwear or sportswear; nothing that requires a jacket. That sits in the same band as the other €€ restaurants in the city. For more on what to do before or after dinner, see our guides to Castelló de la Plana bars, hotels, wineries, and experiences.
Google rating: 4.7 across 329 reviews, which is a high average at meaningful volume for a city-centre restaurant of this type. That consistency suggests the kitchen performs reliably across service styles rather than peaking only on the tasting menu.
Quick reference: €€ price tier | Michelin Plate 2024 and 2025 | À la carte + tasting menu (advance booking required) + lunch menu | Central Castelló location | Easy to book | Confirm hours before visiting.
| Venue | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Alessandro Maino | €€ | — |
| Le Bistrot Gastronómico | €€ | — |
| IZAKAYA Tasca Japonesa | € | — |
| Tasca del Puerto | €€ | — |
| Arre | €€ | — |
| Anhelo | €€ | — |
A quick look at how Alessandro Maino measures up.
At €€ pricing with a Michelin Plate in both 2024 and 2025, Alessandro Maino delivers solid value for a restaurant with genuine culinary range. This is not a splurge venue — it sits in a mid-range bracket where the risk is low and the upside, for food-curious visitors to Castelló, is real. If you want a safe, local crowd-pleaser, look elsewhere; if you want cooking with an international frame and credible recognition, the price is easy to justify.
Yes, but only if you book it in advance — the more creative tasting menu is not available on the day. The à la carte route works fine for a lighter visit, and the lunch menu adjusts based on the number of starters you choose, which gives flexibility. If you want to see what the kitchen can actually do, the tasting menu is the format worth planning around.
The Michelin guide specifically flags the prawns in different textures as a standout dish. Beyond that, the menu draws on the chef's training across Italy, France, Switzerland, and Spain, so expect cooking that shifts registers between those traditions. If you're visiting once and want a through-line of what the kitchen does well, the tasting menu is the cleaner choice over à la carte.
The restaurant is described as having a contemporary ambience, which points to a relaxed but presentable dress code — think neat casual rather than formal. No specific dress requirement is documented for this venue, so treat it as you would a well-regarded mid-range European restaurant: clean and put-together, not a jacket-required occasion.
Le Bistrot Gastronómico is the closest comparison for European-inflected cooking in a similarly accessible price bracket. IZAKAYA Tasca Japonesa suits diners who want a Japanese-focused alternative. Tasca del Puerto makes sense if you want seafood in a more traditional local format. Arre and Anhelo are worth considering if you want something with a more contemporary Spanish direction. Alessandro Maino sits apart from all of these through its explicit cross-European training background and Michelin Plate recognition.
No specific group policy or private dining information is documented for this venue. For larger parties, the safest move is to check the venue's official channels to confirm table configurations — especially if you want the tasting menu, which requires advance booking regardless of group size. The central Avenida Rei En Jaume location makes logistics straightforward for groups arriving from across the city.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
