Yecla where to eat: Restaurants

Try local Yeclan Gazpacho or fried goat cheese in tomato, washed down with a drop of good Yeclan wine

There are plenty of options for those choosing to eat out in Yecla, ranging from tapa to gastronomic taster menus, as well as practical lunchtime set menus ( Menu del día set meals).

Yecla is well known for its warming stews, soups and hearty meals including traditional Yeclan Gazpacho.

This is not Gazpacho in the sense of a cold Mediterranean soup, but is a large flat disc of a bread-type base, spread with rich game, snails and rich stock, all eaten with a special wooden spoon and designed to share. It’s a rich, hearty dish and if you choose to order it, then be sensible beforehand and stick to a salad and perhaps caldo con pelotas ( meatballs in a rich chicken broth) or fried goats’ cheese with tomato, another very typical Yeclan dish, as otherwise it will prove impossible to finish this large plate of food.

It’s well worth trying, particularly if washed down with one of the excellent reds produced in the Yecla area (see Bodegas for more information about how to visit the Yecla wineries)

Diners normally eat the meat and softened bread from the centre, then finish off the crust from around the edge with honey afterwards.

Known as the dish of shepherds and hunters, this was cooked traditionally over an open fire, the flat bread forming the base on which meat hunted from the land, and snails gathered from the countryside, were cooked.

The image shows a Gazpacho enjoyed in Restaurante Los Chispos, which has been particularly recognised for its Gazpacho, although the dish is also available elsewhere.

La Zaranda