Canfranc Estación Hotel Restaurants

Eating inside the station

The Canfranc International Station, opened in 1928 and declared a Bien de Interés Cultural in 2002, is today a five-star grand luxury Barceló hotel: Canfranc Estación, a Royal Hideaway Hotel. The food offering is directed by chef Eduardo Salanova and the head of dining room and sommelier Ana Acín, and is spread over several spaces, with two historic train carriages as the stars.

The restaurants

Canfranc Express. An original early twentieth-century carriage, restored. It has one Michelin star and one Repsol Sol, and serves signature cooking that revives the Aragonese recipe book with contemporary techniques and seasonal produce from the region. It opens Wednesday to Saturday and closes for the end of the season from 1 November to 13 December.

1928. In another restored dining car, with a nod to 1920s Paris. Its "trans-Pyrenean cuisine" reinterprets French cooking with Aragonese produce and is inspired by the banquet for the station's inauguration. It serves tasting menus, at dinner only, Tuesday to Saturday, with French and Spanish wines. It closes from 1 November to 2 December.

El Internacional. On the ground floor of the station's former Hotel Internacional. Classic recipes with influences from the chef's travels, a selection of meats that pays homage to the Aragonese ternasco, and fish. Buffet breakfast from 7:30 to 10:30, à la carte lunch from 13:00 to 15:00 and à la carte dinner from 20:00 to 22:00. It is the hotel's everyday dining room.

Art Déco Café. Café and tapas bar with a 1920s look and music: traditional and contemporary bites, designed for sharing.

La Biblioteca. The cocktail bar, a quiet room surrounded by books with views of the mountain, with classic and signature cocktails.

Prices and booking

The hotel's website does not publish menu or à la carte prices: El Internacional and 1928 link their menus as PDFs. All the restaurants require advance booking, on 974 561 900, at [email protected] or with each restaurant's booking button, which uses TheFork. The website does not say whether you need to be staying at the hotel; ask when you book.

If you are going in November or early December, check the dates: the two carriages close for the end of the season, and in those weeks the options are El Internacional or the Art Déco Café.

How to combine it

It is the table for an occasion, not for a pistes bocadillo. The ideal is the guided tour of the International Station in the morning and lunch or dinner in the building. If you stay at the hotel itself, El Internacional is also the breakfast room. For something simpler in the village there is the Restaurante Universo, and on the road to the pistes, El Boj.