La Taula Restaurant

Garden and sea beside the Palm Grove

La Taula is the restaurant of the Hotel Port Jardín Milenio, on Calle Curtidors, south of the Huerto del Cura, inside a palm orchard. Its motto is the best of the garden and the sea, with seasonal produce, and you eat in a dining room that looks onto the garden or on the terrace, near the hotel pool. It is open to non-guests too.

What is on the menu

The menu published on the hotel's website changes with the season, but it gives a clear idea of the cooking: dishes with Mediterranean roots, modern technique and plenty of grilling.

To start there is acorn-fed Iberian ham, burrata with local semi-dried tomatoes, grilled artichoke flower with gribiche sauce, smoked beef croquettes with chimichurri, sobrasada gyozas with goat's cheese and honey, smoked sardines on brioche and roast foie gras with asparagus. Starters range from about €7.50 to €27.

For main courses, grilled squid with black fideuà, corvina with charred pepper sauce, turbot with truffled cauliflower, grilled duck breast with sweet potato, Iberian presa with quince sauce and veal loin with café de Paris sauce, between €18 and €29. The rice dishes, for a minimum of two people, cost around €16 to €18: with cod, onion and potato; with cuttlefish and corvina; with lean Iberian pork, artichokes and young garlic; and arroz con costra (crusted rice), the dish most typical of Elche, which is topped with egg and finished in the oven. For dessert, brioche torrija, lemon pie or flambéed banana.

Prices are those on the online menu and may change; take them as a guide.

How to book

The hotel does not publish the restaurant's opening hours: book online on its website or call 966 612 033. For groups it has celebration, company and Christmas menus, which are ordered separately. The restaurant also holds special dinners, such as literary dinners with guest authors.

Anyone who buys the hotel's day pass, at €60 per person, gets €45 per person included to spend at La Taula or in the café.

What to combine it with

It is a few minutes' walk from the Huerto del Cura and the Palm Grove Museum, so it fits as a meal after visiting the orchards. If you are staying at the Port Jardín Milenio, it is the easy dinner without taking the car.