Restaurant in Gijón, Spain
Twelve seats, one star, book early.
Marcos holds a Michelin star (2024) and seats just twelve guests at a live kitchen counter, with sommelier Marcos Granda overseeing a service program as carefully constructed as the food. Two tasting menus highlight Asturian ingredients prepared by chef Marcos Mistry in full view. Book four to six weeks out minimum — this is the hardest reservation in Gijón and one of the most focused dining formats in Asturias.
Yes — if you want the most technically focused, service-forward tasting menu in Gijón, Marcos is the answer. Sommelier Marcos Granda built his reputation at Arzak in San Sebastián-calibre rooms before returning to Asturias to open this project, and the result earned a Michelin star in 2024. With a maximum of twelve guests per service, a live kitchen counter, and a wine program driven by one of Spain's most credentialed sommeliers, this is a hard booking that rewards the effort. At €€€€ pricing, it is a serious financial commitment — but the combination of credentials, format, and guest-to-staff ratio puts it in a different category from anything else on the Gijón dining scene.
Marcos is structured around a kitchen counter that seats no more than twelve guests at once. That number is not a gimmick , it is the entire logic of the restaurant. Chef Marcos Mistry cooks in full view, which means every course arrives with a direct line of sight to its preparation. You see the timing, the plating, the decisions. For a food enthusiast who wants to understand how a dish is built rather than simply receive it, this format delivers more information per course than a conventional dining room can.
The experience does not begin at the counter. Aperitifs and appetisers are served first in the bar, then in the library , the Salón Chimeneas , before the move to the kitchen. That progression through three distinct spaces is deliberate: it paces the meal, changes the register between arrival and the main event, and gives Granda's service team room to establish the hospitality standard before the cooking takes over. The warm scent of the wood-panelled Salón Chimeneas and the transition into a live kitchen environment mark a genuine shift in atmosphere, not just a change of seat.
Granda's founding principle is that dining room service and kitchen performance carry equal weight. That is an unusual position to take publicly, and at twelve covers it is actually achievable , the ratio of staff attention to guests here is far higher than at a conventional Michelin-starred restaurant. For the explorer who cares about the full experience rather than just the food, this matters.
Chef Marcos Mistry's cooking is contemporary, ingredient-driven, and focused on Asturian produce. The menu descriptions on record , Tuna and sunflower seeds, Prawns in C major, Red scarlet prawns in yellow , suggest a kitchen comfortable with precise, restrained creativity rather than theatrical complexity. The approach showcases the ingredient's core character rather than overlaying it with technique for its own sake.
Two tasting menus are available: Lo esencial (The Essentials), a shorter format, and Una vuelta a lo esencial (A Return to the Essentials), the more extensive option. For a first visit, the longer menu is the stronger choice , at twelve covers and with a chef cooking live, the pacing is controlled and the extended format gives the kitchen more room to build a coherent arc. Spain has exceptional counter-format restaurants including DiverXO in Madrid and El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, but Marcos is working at a more intimate scale than either of those, which shapes what the longer menu can do.
Marcos holds a Michelin star (2024) and carries a Google rating of 4.9 from 184 reviews , a high score across a meaningful sample for a restaurant of this size and price tier. It also appears in the Opinionated About Dining (OAD) Cheap Eats in North America Ranked #201 (2025) listing, though that ranking is a category anomaly in the data rather than a direct quality indicator for this venue. The Michelin recognition and near-perfect Google score are the operative trust signals here.
Securing a table at Marcos requires planning. At twelve seats per service, availability is structurally limited , this is one of the harder bookings in Asturian fine dining. Book as far ahead as possible; a minimum of several weeks is a reasonable baseline expectation, and popular dates will go faster. Reservations: Book well in advance , twelve-cover format means this fills quickly, particularly on weekends. Budget: €€€€ pricing places this at the leading of Gijón's restaurant tier; expect a tasting menu investment consistent with a one-Michelin-star counter experience in Spain. Dress: No dress code is on record, but the formal service ethos and elegant wood-panelled room suggest smart casual at minimum. Groups: The twelve-seat maximum makes large group bookings impractical; this format suits parties of two to four. Address: C. Cabrales, 76, Centro, Gijón. For more on where to stay nearby, see our full Gijón hotels guide. For drinks before or after, our Gijón bars guide covers the options around Centro.
The live-kitchen counter format has strong precedents in Spain. Aponiente in El Puerto de Santa María operates on a similarly immersive model. Azurmendi in Larrabetzu and Cocina Hermanos Torres in Barcelona both offer experiential formats that reward engaged diners. Globally, Frantzén in Stockholm and FZN by Björn Frantzén in Dubai have established the benchmark for what a chef's counter can achieve at the highest level. Marcos is not competing at that price point or scale , but the format is coherent, the credentials are real, and the intimacy is genuine. Within Asturias, there is nothing directly comparable.
For more context on eating and drinking in the city, see our full Gijón restaurants guide, our Gijón wineries guide, and our Gijón experiences guide.
Book at least four to six weeks in advance. With a maximum of twelve seats per service, availability disappears fast — this is structurally one of the hardest reservations in Gijón. Check for cancellations closer to your date, but do not plan around them.
The kitchen is documented as working with Asturian ingredients through a focused, chef-driven tasting menu format, which typically allows for advance adaptation. check the venue's official channels well before your booking to discuss restrictions — at this scale (twelve covers), the kitchen has the capacity to accommodate, but last-minute requests are risky.
The entire dining room seats a maximum of twelve, so a group of eight to twelve could effectively book the full counter. Smaller groups of two to four will share the space with other diners. If you want a private buyout feel, a larger group makes sense here — confirm availability directly with the restaurant.
At €€€€ with a Michelin star (2024) and a 4.9 Google rating from 184 reviews, the value case is solid for the format. You are paying for a live-kitchen counter experience with sommelier-directed service from Marcos Granda — that combination is not replicated elsewhere in Gijón. If you want à la carte flexibility, this is not the right venue.
Yes — the counter format, wine-forward service, and Michelin-starred kitchen make Marcos a logical choice for a birthday, anniversary, or milestone dinner. The experience moves through aperitifs in the bar and library before the counter meal, which gives the evening a deliberate, multi-stage structure suited to a celebration.
Yes, particularly the longer "Una vuelta a lo esencial" option if you want the full picture of what chef Marcos Mistry is doing with Asturian produce. The shorter "Lo esencial" works if you want a tighter, faster meal. Both are anchored by sommelier Marcos Granda's room direction, which is the differentiator over other tasting-menu options in the city.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
