Bergamonte Tennis Club
Located just north of the city of Valencia, near Pobla de Farnals, Bergamonte offers clay courts to those who enjoy sweating in full few of those of us who prefer to watch, as Peter Sellers said in ‘Being There.’
The main restaurant (there’s a cafeteria upstairs) is an old Barraca, the traditional Valencian home, with a thatched roof and dining on two levels, although once inside it’s quite small, but cosy.
They specialise in rice dishes, offering nine different ones plus the noodle-based fideua, serving them collectively or in individual paella pans.
There are three regular menus, although when we were there there was a gastronomy week going on and so there was a special 20€ menu.
Normally there is an executive menu at 33€, an autumn menu (although it might just be seasonal) at 27€ and a tapas one at 28€.
There are also a bewildering number of dishes, such as ox with foie gras and truffle or Blue Stilton sauce and a wide variety of meat and fish dishes.
Their toasted bread soaked in oil with ali oli and tomato dips are delicious and keep on coming if you keep on eating, and all the cooking is of surprisingly high quality considering that every table was taken when we were there on a Saturday lunch time.
The waiters are efficient and friendly, and have to perform quite a dance in the short spaces between tables, frequently blocked by prams as this is definitely a family friendly restaurant.
Apart from the excellent food, the place is full of details to look at and enjoy, a plethora of ornamentation incorporating the traditional Valencian curtains, ceramics and tiled floors, with paintings dedicated to hunting, shooting and fishing, and just about all the farming and personal items imaginable except brass buttons, green silks and silver shoes.
The wine list is more like a novel, with a page each for Valencia, Ribera del Duero and Rioja wines, plus another for whites, rosés and cavas, plus French champagne should you feel the need.
We chose an Emilio Clemente combination of Bobal and Merlot called Bomelot, which inevitably got me singing along Monty Python style.
Another nice detail was the basket of oranges on each table; I’m not sure if they were meant to be eaten, but it was a nice touch.
The restaurant is in fact in the orange growing part of Valencia and from all the windows you could spy the lush vegetation of the club’s gardens, or gaze out onto the terrace where it is also possible to eat, weather permitting.
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