La Taberna del Gourmet

The plate and the room kept in one rhythm

Shellfish, rice, wine, and the pace of the room sit under one standard here: María José San Román, Chef at La Taberna del Gourmet in Alicante, keeps the plate and service aligned. Her role at GRUPO GOURMET has long joined kitchen discipline with business oversight, not as parallel jobs but as one working method. At the pass, that means flavor, texture, timing, and hospitality do not separate into departments. The decision on a tapa belongs to the same system as the decision on the dining room’s cadence.

La Taberna del Gourmet began as a catering project in 1979 and now acts as the flagship restaurant of the Gourmet Group in Alicante. The house is product-led, with an Alicante accent: Mediterranean cooking, Spanish tapas, seafood from nearby waters, grilled meats, rice, market vegetables, and a wine list attentive to Alicante DO. San Román’s wider work as co-owner and Executive Chef gives the place its structure. She is not presented here as a chef hidden behind a signature dish, but as the person holding the relationship between counter, kitchen, dining room, and group identity.

More than 100 dishes at the counter

The program is built around choice without letting the raw product disappear. The menu runs to more than 100 dishes, including tapas, raciones, tasting menus, seafood, grilled meats, rice, and sweets. The house offers tasting menus of 9 or 11 tapas, as well as the Gerry Dawes tasting menu, but the grammar stays close to the market: Quisquillas de Santa Pola, red prawns from the Alicante coast, grilled sepionets, white asparagus from Navarre, artichoke a vinagreta, Iberian chorizo croquettes, and bread with tomato and anchovies.

Rice has its own weight in the method. Black rice with cuttlefish, prawns, artichokes, and red peppers sits beside dishes that pull from a wider Spanish pantry, including oxtail with french fries and meat and foie gras cannelloni with béchamel and black truffle. The room also works as a gourmet corner and showroom for local fruit, vegetables, meats, fresh seafood, Extra Virgin Olive Oils, and fine wines. That detail matters because it shows the place as more than a restaurant pass. It is also a bench for selection, storage, display, and service, where the ingredient arrives with its name still attached.

The room behind San Fernando

The address is C. San Fernando, 10, set in Alicante’s old town, just behind the promenade. Inside, the register is contemporary rather than rustic nostalgia, with the counter, dining room, tapas bar, delicatessen, and wine bar working as parts of one house. The room carries movement: plates crossing the pass, wine pulled from the Spanish list, seafood shown with the confidence of a place that trusts its suppliers. It can be lively without turning the craft into noise.

La Taberna del Gourmet has been described as a meeting point for chefs and gastronomic critics, but its more useful texture is bench-side. The shellfish are not there for display alone. The rice, croquettes, anchovies, asparagus, oils, and bottles form the language of the place while service moves around them.

Alicante held in product

La Taberna del Gourmet is listed in the 2026 MICHELIN Guide España. San Román’s Michelin star belongs to Monastrell, not this address, so the distinction here is the continuity of her operating hand across the group. If the close of a meal needs a last marker, let it be specific: Catalan crème brûlée foam after Quisquillas de Santa Pola at C. San Fernando, 10.