La Ferrera

Pinedo beach is not a place where you come across many tourists and it has the disadvantage of being close to the port and having a horizon consisting of cranes and tankers.

With all these disadvantages, it is logical that an upmarket restaurant is going to have to work hard to attract diners there, and La Ferrera works hard and works well.

Spaciously divided into various dining areas both inside and on two terraces, with the beach a mere pebble throw away through the window, La Ferrera exudes light and tranquility.

La Ferrera, according to the menu, was the nickname of the owner’s mother, and the owner, Lola Soler, has certainly put a lot of love into her project, with attention to detail in every aspect of the place, but especially the food.

But, let’s begin with the most important thing; the wine list, with an interesting collection of Valencian wines at the beginning, where they belong, including the first restaurant I have found with the award winning Vegamar Merseguera wine, a remarkable white wine made from indigenous Valencian grapes.

See our article on this wine:

Vegamar’s Champion Wine

Crucial decisions dealt with, the food on offer includes some highly original dishes, such as mussels with roast pumpkin, red curry and coconut, or crisp prawns with goats’ cheese, lime, coconut mayonnaise and garlic mayonnaise with cherry.

The baby squid were served with this mayonnaise, crafted to fool you into thinking that it is a small, violet onion.

So after a leisurely wait in the tradition of slow food, where the dishes are being crafted in the kitchen rather than heated up in the micro-wave, the starters arrived.

Apart from the baby squid we had the esgarraet, a kind of ratatouille to give it its English name, served originally like a pudding, a delicious menage of cod, peppers and cheese.

Then there were the traditional patatas bravas, but with an original sauce, served with their skin on as a potato should be.

There were also some croquettes, but I’m not allowed to say what was inside them in order to protect the sensitive and small children. However, they were absolutely delicious.

Finally a paella, it was after all a Sunday and somebody has to preserve tradition in a world going mad.

What else? Flowers on each table and some elegant shubbery separating the different areas.

I admit I was about to complain that the taps didn’t work in the bathroom, when a little boy showed me that they were automatic.

As I said; a world gone mad.

Unlike the Malvarrosa beach, Pinedo’s beach is totally Spanish, with not a tourist in sight, and the whole promenade has been tastefully reformed and is now a delight to walk along and work up an appetite.

I did manage to find one British couple, Ralph and Maria, who had been brought along by their Spanish host Ximo, and they agreed that it was one of the best meals they had ever had after many years visiting Spain.

Along with the coffee there was a nice touch, a small porrón with the mistela, giving me another opportunity to inform everyone uninvited that the British sailors used to call it Miss Taylor.