Restaurant in València, Spain
Camarena's archive, à la carte, at €€ prices.
A Michelin Plate restaurant on the lower floor of Valencia's Modernist Mercado de Colón, Habitual is the accessible entry point into Ricard Camarena's cooking. At €€, the extensive à la carte is built around local market produce, with vegetables given a lead role. Strong value for a Michelin-recognised kitchen; easy to book and well-suited to weekday lunch.
If you are already familiar with Ricard Camarena's cooking and want to understand where his ideas come from, Habitual is the right next visit. It is also the right call for anyone who wants a serious, market-driven Mediterranean lunch in a striking building without paying €€€€ prices. Set on the lower floor of the Modernist Mercado de Colón in L'Eixample, this is a weekday lunch or relaxed Saturday meal, not a special-occasion splurge. The format rewards regulars: the à la carte is extensive, the produce rotates with what the market is doing, and there is enough range to eat differently on each visit.
Timing matters here. The Mercado de Colón is most animated at lunch, when the market hall fills with local foot traffic and the kitchen is working at full pace. If you have been once and want to get more from the menu, a weekday lunch gives you a quieter room and more attentive service than a busy Saturday. Avoid peak summer midday heat if you are arriving on foot; the covered market hall itself is comfortable, but the surrounding streets in July and August are not.
Habitual holds a Michelin Plate (2025), which signals cooking worth the detour without reaching starred complexity. The framing here is that the local market is the compass: the menu is built around what is seasonal and available from Valencia's agricultural hinterland, with vegetables given a lead role rather than treated as garnish. Dishes like the aubergine preparations and fried green mini peppers served with egg yolk sauce and cured fish roe are not afterthoughts; they are the point. This is Mediterranean cooking where the ingredient sourcing logic is visible on the plate.
The à la carte also carries a selection of Camarena's older dishes, which makes Habitual useful context if you plan to visit Ricard Camarena at the flagship. You can trace how ideas evolved from accessible, high-volume cooking to the more refined tasting menu format upstairs. For a regular visitor, this is where you work through the longer menu rather than defaulting to the same three dishes.
The price band sits at €€, which means you can eat well here for a fraction of what the starred neighbours charge. That affordability is not a compromise on sourcing: the produce-first approach means you are paying for good ingredients handled with skill, not for elaborate technique or a long service team. Compared to what you would spend for a similar quality-to-price ratio elsewhere in the Spanish dining scene, Habitual is positioned sensibly. For reference, the broader Spanish fine dining circuit includes restaurants like El Celler de Can Roca in Girona or Arzak in San Sebastián at the leading end; Habitual operates in a different register entirely, and that is by design.
Mercado de Colón building is a late 19th-century Modernist market hall that has been repurposed into a food and retail destination. Habitual occupies the lower floor, where the architectural bones of the original building are part of the atmosphere. The layout is described as surprising — the space does not feel like a conventional restaurant, and the design is worth paying attention to on a first visit. For a returning guest, the room is familiar enough that focus shifts to the menu.
Address puts you in L'Eixample, Valencia's planned grid district, within reasonable reach of the city centre. If you are building a day around the visit, Valencia's broader food and drink scene is well covered nearby. See our full València bars guide and our full València experiences guide for what to do before or after.
If you came for the more familiar dishes on a first visit, the second visit is the time to move into the vegetable-forward section of the menu. The kitchen's treatment of local produce is where Habitual differentiates itself from a standard market bistro. The fried mini peppers and aubergine preparations are the dishes that telegraph the sourcing philosophy most clearly. Order around the seasonal items rather than anchoring to the same proteins.
The à la carte length means there is genuine choice here, which is less common at this price point in Valencia. Use that range. The menu is broad enough that two visits with different ordering strategies will feel like different meals. For other vegetable-forward or produce-led cooking in Spain at a higher register, Azurmendi in Larrabetzu and Cocina Hermanos Torres in Barcelona operate in adjacent territory with more technical complexity.
Habitual is at Mercado de Colón, Carrer de Jorge Juan, 19, L'Eixample, 46004 València. Price range is €€. The venue holds a Michelin Plate (2025) and a Google rating of 4.5 from 2,874 reviews. Booking is rated easy. No phone or website data is available in our records; check current availability through the Mercado de Colón directly or via third-party booking platforms. For more options in the city, see our full València restaurants guide and our full València hotels guide.
Other restaurants in the Camarena group and in Valencia's broader dining tier worth considering alongside Habitual include El Poblet, Fierro, Fraula, and Kaido Sushi Bar. For international comparisons in the accessible-price, produce-led format, Loumi in Berlin and Haubentaucher in Rottach-Egern occupy loosely similar territory outside Spain. Also worth noting for broader Iberian context: Aponiente in El Puerto de Santa María and DiverXO in Madrid represent different ends of the Spanish dining spectrum.
Quick reference: Habitual, Mercado de Colón, L'Eixample, València | €€ | Michelin Plate 2025 | Google 4.5 (2,874 reviews) | Easy to book.
Booking difficulty is rated easy. You do not need to plan weeks in advance the way you would for Camarena's flagship. A few days' notice is typically sufficient, though for a weekend lunch in a busy period, booking ahead by a week is sensible. Walk-ins may be possible given the venue's size and volume capacity.
The menu is produce-forward with vegetables playing a significant role, which means there are genuine options for vegetable-focused diners rather than token substitutions. For specific dietary requirements, contact the venue directly before booking; no phone or website is listed in our current records, so reach out through the Mercado de Colón or a booking platform. The Mediterranean focus and wide à la carte suggest reasonable flexibility.
The à la carte is longer than you might expect at this price point, so take time with it rather than defaulting to the first familiar dish. The setting inside the Modernist Mercado de Colón is part of the experience; arrive with a few minutes to take in the building. This is casual Mediterranean cooking with serious sourcing behind it, not a formal dining room. Dress accordingly, expect a relaxed pace, and order the vegetable dishes.
Habitual operates as an à la carte restaurant rather than a tasting menu format. If you want Camarena's tasting menu experience, that is at the flagship Ricard Camarena restaurant, which operates at €€€€. Habitual's value is precisely that it delivers produce-led, chef-driven cooking in a format where you control the pacing and the spend.
For a step up in price and formality, Fierro and Fraula offer contemporary cooking at €€€. If you want farm-to-table with a Spanish focus at €€€, consider El Poblet. For something entirely different in terms of cuisine, Kaido Sushi Bar is worth the visit. Habitual's combination of Michelin recognition, €€ pricing, and a broad market-driven à la carte is not directly replicated elsewhere in the city at this price tier.
For a milestone celebration, Habitual is not the first recommendation: the setting is relaxed and the price point is casual, which makes it a poor match for a big-spend occasion. For that, the Camarena flagship or El Poblet are better choices. Where Habitual works for a special occasion is a low-key one: a birthday lunch with a small group that wants good food without the formality or the bill that comes with a starred room.
Yes, clearly. A Michelin Plate, a 4.5 Google rating from nearly 3,000 reviews, produce sourced from Valencia's markets, and cooking from within Ricard Camarena's kitchen stable, all at €€: the value equation is direct. You are getting a level of culinary thinking that sits well above what the price tag suggests. The comparison that matters is not whether Habitual is cheap, but whether it over-delivers for its tier , and it does.
| Venue | Awards | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Habitual | This unusual restaurant, part of chef Ricard Camarena’s stable, boasts a surprising design and layout on the lower floor of the Modernist-style Mercado de Colón. The extensive and affordable à la carte features several of the famous chef’s dishes from the past, with a focus on Mediterranean cooking but with the occasional nod to international cuisine.; In addition to the gourmet restaurant, Ricard Camarena has a few more gems in Valencia: 1 of them is Habitual! Habitual is located down at the hip Mercado de Colon and stands for regional Mediterranean cuisine. The large menu offers a nice overview of the local products and this daily for a large number of guests. Here you can enjoy great Spanish classics - brought differently - but also dishes where vegetables have a leading role such as the well-known eggplant or the typical green mini peppers fried in olive oil and served with egg yolk sauce and "hueva de pescado". The local market is the compass!; Michelin Plate (2025); This unusual restaurant, part of chef Ricard Camarena’s stable, boasts a surprising design and layout on the lower floor of the Modernist-style Mercado de Colón. The extensive and affordable à la carte features several of the famous chef’s dishes from the past, with a focus on Mediterranean cooking but with the occasional nod to international cuisine. | €€ | — |
| Ricard Camarena | Michelin 2 Star, World's 50 Best | €€€€ | — |
| Riff | Michelin 1 Star | €€€€ | — |
| Llisa Negra | €€€ | — | |
| Saiti | €€€ | — | |
| Toshi | €€€ | — |
Key differences to consider before you reserve.
A few days ahead is typically enough for a €€ à la carte restaurant at this level, though weekend slots at a well-known chef's venue fill faster. Habitual sits inside the Mercado de Colón, which draws consistent foot traffic, so Friday and Saturday evenings are worth booking earlier in the week. No reservation phone or booking link is listed publicly, so check directly via the market or a local reservations platform.
The menu has a strong vegetable-forward section, including dishes where vegetables take the lead, which makes it more accommodating for vegetarians than many Spanish restaurants at this price point. No allergen or dietary policy is documented in available venue data, so flag requirements when booking. The à la carte format gives you more flexibility than a fixed tasting menu.
Habitual is Ricard Camarena's accessible, everyday restaurant, not his flagship. It holds a Michelin Plate (2025) and sits on the lower floor of the Modernist Mercado de Colón on Carrer de Jorge Juan, 19. The menu pulls from Mediterranean cooking with some international touches, and several dishes are reworked versions of Camarena's older recipes — good context if you know his starred work, good value if you don't.
Habitual runs an à la carte format, not a tasting menu. That is part of the point: this is where Camarena offers his cooking at €€ pricing without a fixed progression. If you want the full tasting-menu experience from Camarena, his flagship restaurant is the right address. Habitual is the case for flexibility and value, not ceremony.
Riff and Llisa Negra are the closest comparisons within Camarena's own group if you want to stay in that kitchen's orbit. Saiti offers regional Valencian cooking with more formal ambition at a similar price tier. Toshi is the option if you want a departure from Mediterranean cooking entirely. For vegetable-forward Spanish cooking at €€, Habitual is the most direct route into Camarena's thinking without the flagship price.
It works for a low-key celebration where the food matters more than the occasion's formality. The Modernist Mercado de Colón setting gives it atmosphere, and a Michelin Plate (2025) signals a kitchen that takes the cooking seriously at €€ prices. For a milestone dinner where the occasion itself needs to feel significant, Camarena's flagship would be the stronger choice.
At €€, it is one of the more direct ways to eat food shaped by a Michelin-starred chef's ideas without paying starred prices. The à la carte covers Mediterranean cooking with genuine depth, and the Mercado de Colón location adds architectural interest that most restaurants in this price bracket cannot match. For value-to-quality ratio in València at this level, Habitual is a strong case.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
