Sidrería El Roxu

A chigre on Calle Cervantes

El Roxu is on Calle Cervantes, right in the centre of Villaviciosa, the town of the Cider Region. It presents itself as a chigre (cider tavern) of the old kind, where people know each other by name and gather around a culín, and its cooking is the Asturian of always: traditional recipes, fish and seafood from the Cantabrian, grass-fed meats and the region's cheeses.

Ciders with Designation of Origin

The cider list is its reason for being. It has many references of pouring cider with Protected Designation of Origin Sidra de Asturias, all Asturian, and also brut ciders, table ciders, ice ciders and cider spirits. If you come from visiting a cider mill, here you can compare several houses in the same afternoon. Natural cider is served poured from height: let them pour it for you.

The menu, with its prices

For nibbling, bravas or alioli potatoes (€9.50), ten croquettes (€13.50), broken eggs with prawns (€19), squid (€24), marinated sardine (€14), salt cod omelette (€22) or octopus with cachelos (€25.50). The lettuce and village spring onion salad costs €9. The stews are the usual: Asturian pote, €17, and fabada, €18; also lacón with cachelos and fried pixín.

There are Acquerello-grain rice dishes for two at least, from €26 to €35 a portion (with free-range chicken, with seafood, soupy with clams or with blue lobster), and meats such as the cachopo of ham, cheese, asparagus and pepper (€28), the escalopines with Cabrales (€21.50), the aged-beef entrecôte (€32) or the chuletón, at €60 a kilo. The cheese board lets you try Gamonéu del Puerto, Cabrales, Pría or Tresmil, from €10 to €16 each. The home-made desserts, such as cheesecake, grandmother's tart or rice pudding, cost €7.

When the kitchen opens

The kitchen opens Wednesday to Sunday, from 13:30 to 16:30 and from 20:30 to 23:30. Closed Monday and Tuesday. To book, call 984 833 197 or write to [email protected].

To arrive with the cider learned, the guided visit to El Gaitero is in La Espuncia, on the edge of the town. If you are sleeping in the town, the Hotel Arcea Villaviciosa is a stroll away; in Amandi, Casa Cortina is the cider house of the Sidra Cortina cider mill, with a garden for children.