Hogar del Pescador Restaurant

The Devesa Santacreu family opened Hogar del Pescador in 1970 next to Villajoyosa's Yacht Club, on Avenida del Puerto. Today Marta Devesa runs the kitchen, with more than three decades in seafaring cooking, and Julio runs the dining room and the wines. Every morning they choose the fish and shellfish at the town's fish auction. It has one Sol from the Repsol Guide.

A menu of fish auction and rice

The menu is long and almost all of it comes from the sea. Among the starters, the white prawn and monkfish ensaladilla (Russian salad) (€18), the fried small fish from the bay (€18), the caldero croquettes (€4.50 each) or La Vila soup (€23). There are salted goods with tomato and shellfish by weight, such as red prawn or shrimp.

Rice dishes are the centrepiece: almost twenty, from the La Vila-style rice with rabbit (€20) or the arròs brut (€25) to rice a banda (€24.50), black rice with cuttlefish (€23) or the one with Galician lobster, dry or soupy (€38). For anyone who wants a seafarers' stew, the fisherman-style fish caldero (€32.50), the suquet de peix or the zarzuela. The fish of the day is ordered by weight, grilled or on the griddle, and there is hake from La Vila bay and rock red mullet. For full tables there is a €60 tasting menu, which ends with churros with chocolate.

Lunch daily, dinner at the weekend

It opens at midday every day, from 13:00 to 16:30, and serves dinner only on Fridays and Saturdays, from 20:15 to 22:45. Sunday at midday is when it fills up most: book on its website or by phone, on 965 890 021 or 625 778 018. From Sunday to Thursday evening it is closed.

Facing the harbour

The dining room has views of the sea and the harbour. It is east of the old town, in the harbour area; from Playa Centro it is a little over a kilometre along the promenade.

Who comes

It is the table for a long weekend lunch with rice at the centre, and the place to try products from La Vila, from the bay hake to the Creu de Pedra vermouth among their aperitifs. If your budget is tighter, bear in mind that bread with oil and alioli are charged separately and shellfish is by weight.

On the local routes

It is the lunch stop on the weekday of kayak, rice and chocolate and on the chocolate Saturday in Villajoyosa. Beforehand, the kayak along the coves to the Torre del Xarco whets the appetite nicely.