Gijon, the maritime capital of Asturias, has a great environment throughout the whole year. Part of the Green Coast, this city deserves a one weekend visit. The beaches, streets, tapas bars and restaurants will amaze you. Eating in Gijon will be the perfect ending for a great weekend. The food could be described in three words: generous, tasty and cheap.
As well as other cities from Asturias, Gijon is the combination of traditional recipes with new cuisine, created by great chefs. Some of the best dishes to have in Gijon are the fabada asturiana with copango (chorizo, blood sausage and shoulder ham), the fabes with D.O.P with clam and the pote asturiano. Also, the fish and seafood soups, the meloso rice with lobster or a good vegetable stew are also great options.
Another typical dish if the chopa a la sidra (cooked with cider) and pulpu con patatines (octopues with potatos), which is as good as the octopus a la feria that their neighbours from Galicia prepare in a lot of villages, such as O’Carballino.
Usually eaten in the summer, the fried calamares de potera (squid) or in its ink, and the cuttlefish afogaos (drowned, as they keep the cover while they are beeing cooked). Maybe you are lucky enough to find potato and fish stews, with fish such as the tiñosu (red scorpionfish) and the golondru. The pixín (anglerfish), hake and cod fried in egg batter. Between the seafood, the llámpares (limpet) and erizos (sea urchin) have always been a part of the Asturian cuisine, and they are even canned sometimes.
The Ruta de la Sidra (Route of the cider) will allow you to get to know the taverns where you can try the Asturian Cider with D.O.P., produced in the region. If you decide to follow the routes of the Gijón Goloso initiative. you will also get to know the sweets of the Spanish city with more bakeries per inhabitant.
The Asturian city maintains the spirit of tapas. Eating in Gijon will guarantee you a great quality at a good price. There are many places to go eat tapas at the “vermouth time”. We recommend some of them:
Pozcas de sal is a tavern relatively recent, but it has been able to place itself as one of the best ones in the city. They define their cuisine as “attractive, tasty, happu, different and economic dishes. Perfecto to enjoy with a beer or a glass of wine”.
Another option if Las tapas y la sartenuca. It is not formal place, but their food is tasty and cheap. You can choose the tapa you like the most at their counter, but we recommend you to try the sartenuca de huevos rotos (cracked eggs) and the picadillo (sausage).
Due to its location, as it is a coastal city, and to its historic relevance as an industrial and mining harbour, Gijon has always been full of a great number of restaurants where people are able to find the traditional dishes of the Asturian gastronomy, with a broad offer of fish and seafood.
We recommend the Restaurante Auga, located in the sportive harbour and specialized in fish and seafood. It offers a traditional but modern cuisine.
The Restaurante Ciudadela, close to San Lorenzo beach, will enable you to find an economic menu with some great prices.
The chef Jairo López opened the restaurant Ardilla Somió the Summer of 2014. This is a good place to eat tapas at any time of the day.
The restaurant La Tasca de Cabrales is another place where you can find a great variety of tapas and wines. Only 8km away from Gijon there is Casa Gerardo. This place is more than 120 years old and now it has becomed one of the trending restaurants thanks to the chefs Pedro and Marcos Moran.
