Restaurant in Villaviciosa, Spain
Serious Asturian cooking at fair prices.
A rural Asturian destination with three tasting menus, Michelin Plate recognition for 2024 and 2025, and a kitchen built around garden produce harvested to order and daily-auction fish from the Cantabrian coast. At €€ pricing, it is one of the most coherent and accessible serious tasting menu experiences in northern Spain — worth planning a route around.
Alenda is the right call for food-focused travellers who want to eat seriously in rural Asturias without paying the prices that come with Spain's most decorated restaurant rooms. If you are driving the Asturian coast, building a trip around Villaviciosa or the cider country east of Oviedo, and you want a tasting menu experience grounded in what this region actually produces, Alenda is where you should be eating. It rewards the explorer who plans ahead rather than the last-minute diner looking for a table in town. Book it as the centrepiece of a day that also takes in the coast at Lastres or Tazones, because the fish on your plate will have come from exactly those harbours, auctioned that morning.
Alenda sits in Castiello de Selorio, a hamlet outside Villaviciosa in Asturias, and the address tells you something important about what you are signing up for: this is a destination, not a walk-in. The property is run by Iñaki Gómez in the kitchen and Lola Palacio front of house, and the rhythm of the restaurant is shaped by the vegetable garden immediately beside the building. Herbs and flowers come in minutes before service. That is not a marketing detail — it is the operational logic of the kitchen, and it shows in what arrives at the table in whatever season you visit.
Right now, in the current season, that means the garden is contributing its most active window of produce, and the daily fish sourced from the auctions at Lastres and Tazones will reflect whatever the Cantabrian Sea is offering. Asturian beef cuts round out the protein side. The cooking style is described as contemporary , fine textures, precise presentation , applied to ingredients that are fundamentally regional and traditional. This is not a kitchen trying to reinvent Asturian food. It is a kitchen that takes Asturian food seriously enough to present it with care.
Alenda offers three tasting menus: Castiello, Rodiles, and Alenda. The last of the three takes its name from an Asturian word that translates, roughly, as taking time to breathe. That framing is worth paying attention to when choosing which menu to book. The Alenda menu is the fullest expression of what Gómez is doing here , the longest arc, the most complete progression through the kitchen's priorities. If you have travelled specifically to eat here, that is the format to choose. The shorter menus (Castiello and Rodiles) give you a more compressed version of the same philosophy, which makes them the sensible option if you are combining lunch with driving or want a lighter commitment at the €€ price point.
The architecture of the tasting experience here follows a clear sequence: the vegetable garden provides the opening movement, fresh flowers and herbs framing the first courses; fish from the coast anchors the middle; Asturian meat closes. That progression is not arbitrary , it maps the geography of this particular corner of Spain, moving from the land directly outside the door, out to the sea a short distance away, and back inland to the cattle country that defines Asturian food culture. For a diner who wants to understand a region through eating, this structure makes Alenda considerably more coherent than a restaurant that simply cooks well without a locational argument.
Alenda holds a Michelin Plate for 2024 and 2025, which signals consistent kitchen quality recognised by the guide without the star-level price that comes with it. The €€ pricing makes this one of the more accessible serious tasting menu experiences in northern Spain. Google reviewers rate it 4.8 from 191 reviews, a score that holds up even accounting for the self-selecting nature of diners who travel to a village restaurant on purpose. Booking is rated easy relative to other destination restaurants in Spain at this quality level, but the rural location and small scale mean you should not assume availability at short notice, particularly on weekends in summer and autumn when Asturias draws visitors. Contact the restaurant directly to reserve; no booking platform is listed in the available data. Phone and website details are not confirmed in our records , check current listings before you travel. For more places to eat and drink around Villaviciosa, see our full Villaviciosa restaurants guide, and if you are building a longer stay, our Villaviciosa hotels guide, bars guide, wineries guide, and experiences guide cover the rest of the area. One nearby option worth knowing about is Casa Eladia in Piñera, Rozaes, which takes a different approach to the same regional larder.
At €€ per head for a tasting menu with this level of sourcing rigour and Michelin Plate recognition, Alenda is good value by any measure for northern Spain fine dining. The combination of daily-auction fish, garden produce harvested to order, and a menu structure that actually tells you something about Asturian geography makes it the kind of meal that justifies planning a route around it. Go for the Alenda menu if you have the time. Book ahead, especially if your visit falls on a weekend.
If Alenda has sharpened your appetite for serious Spanish cooking and you are travelling further, the country's leading tasting menu restaurants set a useful benchmark. El Celler de Can Roca in Girona and Arzak in San Sebastián represent the €€€€ end of the spectrum in terms of both price and ambition. In the Basque Country, Azurmendi in Larrabetzu and Mugaritz in Errenteria push into more experimental territory. On the Mediterranean side, Quique Dacosta in Dénia and Aponiente in El Puerto de Santa María share Alenda's coastal sourcing logic but operate at a different scale and price tier. For urban fine dining, DiverXO in Madrid, Cocina Hermanos Torres in Barcelona, and Ricard Camarena in València all offer points of comparison. If your travels extend beyond Spain, Martin Berasategui in Lasarte-Oria remains one of the most decorated kitchens in the country, and internationally, Frantzén in Stockholm and Maison Lameloise in Chagny offer useful reference points for what a rural destination tasting menu experience can look like at higher price tiers.
Alenda is a rural destination restaurant in a very small village outside Villaviciosa , you are driving here on purpose, not stumbling in. It serves three tasting menus at €€ pricing, all built around daily-auction fish from the nearby Cantabrian coast, seasonal garden produce harvested before service, and Asturian meat. The cooking is contemporary in technique but rooted in traditional regional flavours. It holds a Michelin Plate (2025), which signals reliable quality without the pricing pressure of a starred room. Come for lunch if you want to make a day of the surrounding coast.
Booking is rated easy compared to other destination restaurants in Spain at this recognition level, but Alenda is small and rural, which means availability can tighten quickly on weekends and during Asturias's busier travel months (summer and early autumn). Aim to book at least one to two weeks out for weekday visits and further ahead for weekend tables. Contact the restaurant directly , no third-party booking platform is confirmed in our current data.
It is a workable solo option. The tasting menu format means you are not dependent on group conversation to structure the meal, and the front-of-house approach , described as friendly and engaged , suits solo diners who want interaction rather than invisibility. At €€ pricing, the solo spend is reasonable for the level of sourcing and kitchen attention involved. That said, if you want a counter or bar seat for solo dining, availability details are not confirmed in our records , check when booking.
Casa Eladia in Piñera, Rozaes is the most direct local comparison , also rural, also Asturian in focus, and worth considering if you want a different register. For a broader view of where to eat in the area, our full Villaviciosa restaurants guide maps the options across price points and styles. If you are willing to travel further for a higher-ambition meal, Arzak in San Sebastián or Azurmendi in Larrabetzu step up to €€€€ territory with corresponding depth of kitchen operation.
Yes, at this price point, a tasting menu with Michelin Plate recognition, daily-sourced fish, and vegetables harvested minutes before service is a strong proposition. The three-menu structure gives you genuine choice about depth of commitment: the Alenda menu is the fullest version of the kitchen's argument and is worth choosing if you have come specifically to eat here. The Castiello or Rodiles formats work if you want a shorter experience or are managing a tighter schedule. The 4.8 Google rating across 191 reviews adds further confidence that the kitchen delivers consistently.
At €€, yes. You are getting a tasting menu with Michelin Plate credentials, produce from a kitchen garden harvested to order, and fish sourced that morning from Lastres and Tazones , at a price tier that sits well below comparable experiences at starred restaurants in northern Spain. If your reference point is El Celler de Can Roca or Azurmendi at €€€€, Alenda delivers a different scale of operation but a genuinely similar commitment to sourcing rigour, at roughly half the price or less. For a rural destination lunch in Asturias, it represents clear value.
| Venue | Cuisine | Awards | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alenda | Modern Cuisine | This delightful rural property, run in friendly fashion by Iñaki Gómez in the kitchen and Lola Palacio front of house, is located in a very small village and is a way of life for this couple who work tirelessly to run the business and cultivate their vegetable garden located next to the restaurant. They put a huge amount of enthusiasm and professionalism into their work which is showcased on three exclusive menus (Castiello, Rodiles and Alenda, the latter an Asturian term that could be translated as “taking time to breathe”) where tradition and authentic Asturian flavours take centre stage. Prominence is given to fish sourced daily from the neighbouring fish auctions in Lastres and Tazones, as well to superb cuts of Asturian meat, all of which are prepared in contemporary style with fine textures and elegant presentation. At Alenda, you will always find fresh vegetables, as well as flowers and herbs gathered just a few minutes before each meal service.; Michelin Plate (2025); Michelin Plate (2024) | Easy | — |
| Quique Dacosta | Creative | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| El Celler de Can Roca | Progressive Spanish, Creative | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Arzak | Modern Basque, Creative | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Azurmendi | Progressive, Creative | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Aponiente | Progressive - Seafood, Creative | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
How Alenda stacks up against the competition.
Alenda operates on a tasting menu format only — there is no à la carte option. The restaurant is run by Iñaki Gómez in the kitchen and Lola Palacio front of house, and the experience is shaped by three distinct menus (Castiello, Rodiles, and Alenda) built around daily-sourced fish from nearby Lastres and Tazones and Asturian meat. The address is a hamlet called Castiello de Selorio outside Villaviciosa — factor in travel time if you are not already in the area, as this is not a city restaurant you can walk to after a train.
Booking a few weeks in advance is advisable for a rural restaurant of this profile — Michelin Plate recognition draws food-focused visitors from outside Asturias and the dining room is not large. Hours and a direct booking channel are not listed publicly, so contacting Alenda via the address in Castiello de Selorio, 23A, 33316 Villaviciosa is the starting point; local hotel concierges in Villaviciosa can also help. Weekends during summer, when Asturias sees heavier tourism, carry the most risk of unavailability.
It depends on the format you prefer. Tasting menus at a rural property with a couple running the room tend to be warm and unhurried rather than counter-focused, so solo diners can eat comfortably — you are not competing for bar seats or communal tables. At €€ per head, the solo cost is manageable compared with star-level tasting menus elsewhere in northern Spain. If interaction with the kitchen is important to you, Alenda's scale means you are likely to feel the chef's presence without it being a formal counter experience.
Villaviciosa is a small town and Alenda is the area's most recognised modern-cuisine address at this price point. For something at a higher tier and broader profile within Asturias, Casa Gerardo in Prendes holds a Michelin star and is a reference for regional cooking with longer provenance. If you want to stay rural but eat more casually, the sidrerías around Villaviciosa offer Asturian cider and grilled fish at lower cost, but without the sourcing rigour or tasting menu structure that makes Alenda worth the visit.
At €€ pricing with Michelin Plate recognition in 2024 and 2025, the value equation is straightforward: you are getting daily-sourced fish from Lastres and Tazones, vegetables and herbs picked from the restaurant's own garden, and contemporary Asturian cooking from a kitchen that operates with genuine commitment. The three menu options give you some control over the experience. For tasting menu formats at this price in rural northern Spain, this is a strong proposition — it would be harder to justify at star-level prices, but Alenda does not charge those.
Yes, at €€ per head for a tasting menu with two consecutive Michelin Plate awards (2024 and 2025), Alenda is priced below what the sourcing and format typically command. Fish arriving daily from the Lastres and Tazones auctions and produce cut from the kitchen garden minutes before service are not things you see at every mid-price rural restaurant. The comparison that matters: Spain's Michelin-starred tasting menus in the same region cost considerably more. Alenda delivers a similar level of intention and local specificity at a fraction of the price.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
