Parador de Ávila Restaurant

What it is

The Parador restaurant is called Piedras Albas, like the 16th-century palace that houses the Parador next to the Puerta del Carmen. Paradores presents it as a "temple of Ávila beef" and as a spokesman for traditional Ávila cooking. The dining room looks onto the garden and the wall through a glazed courtyard, so you eat with the wall in view even in winter.

What you eat

The menu leans on the province's produce. The specialities Paradores highlights are the chop and rib steak of veal with the Carne de Ávila PGI, of the Avileña Negra Ibérica breed, the beans of El Barco and the yemas de Santa Teresa, which the Parador makes itself. The menu is rounded out with pork products, pulses, patatas revolconas with torreznos, Teresian pucheretes, grilled rib steak and roast suckling pig. Once a year the Parador holds a gastronomic week devoted to El Barco beans.

Paradores does not publish prices on the restaurant page; the menu can be consulted on its website. Ask the price when you book if you are on a fixed budget.

Hours

The restaurant page publishes these hours:

• Breakfast: from 7:45 to 11:00.
• Lunch: from 13:15 to 16:00.
• Dinner: from 20:30 to 23:00.
• Café: from 11:00 to 24:00.

It does not give closing days. At weekends, on long weekends and during the bean weeks it is advisable to book.

How to book and get there

By phone on 920 211 340, by email at [email protected] or through the Paradores website. You enter through the Puerta del Carmen, on the north side of the wall, opposite Plaza de Concepción Arenal. The Parador warns that pedestrian access has some difficulties because it is a historic building: if you have reduced mobility, call beforehand.

What to combine it with

In the garden you can see the Parador's archaeological collection, with sarcophagi, baptismal fonts and a 5th-century BC granite bull: take a turn before lunch. Afterwards, the nearest stretch of city wall and the cathedral are a few minutes' walk away, and at dusk it is worth going down to the river and climbing up to the Cuatro Postes. If you are staying the night, see the page for the Parador de Ávila.