El Salt, Naquera

Naquera is a village in the Calderona mountain range just outside Valencia, and a place that attracts a lot of weekenders. However, if you go midweek, you pretty much have the place to yourself, as we found out one Thursday morning at the beginning of October 2020.

There are many well marked walking and horse riding path, and if you follow the signs to Font D’Or, where you can pick up (in a bottle) fresh mountain water, you can leave your car in front of El Salt restaurant and walk towards Pi de Salt, a 150 year old pine tree.

The tree and its brethren are located beside an abandoned quarry, and there is an easy circular route that will take you past all kinds of flora (olives, carob, holm oak) and all kinds of herbs, especially thyme.

Back at El Salt, you can sit out on the terrace under a morass of entangled branches offering natural shade and order your set menu, which is an incredibly priced 10€, including drinks and coffee.

The starters included paella, gazpacho or crab salad, and the main dish was more turf than surf with chicken, lamb, cheek (‘carrillada’ and better than it sounds), stuffed peppers or hake.

We tried to be clever by ordering the salad and then paella instead of a second, only to discover that there was a normal salad anyway included. Again that 10€ was looking worryingly cheap.

The dessert was nothing special; fruit, ice cream, although the pudding was home made. And the drinks included a whole bottle of wine and none of this single glass nonsense. In fact, I noticed that solitary diners were also given a full bottle.

The terrace was half full or half empty, not bad for such an isolated place; the waiter was friendly, although he insisted in speaking Valenciano (or maybe it was the mask). Still, that’s one of the reasons I take my wife along on these excursions; that and the driving home after a bottle of wine!

URBANIZACION FUENTE DEL ORO N2 B3, Náquera,