Our Favourite Vegetarian and Vegan-Friendly Restaurants in the Marina Alta

One of the questions we're asked most often is, "Where can we find good vegetarian food in the mountains?"

After years of exploring these villages, we've finally put together a guide to the cafés and restaurants we genuinely love—from vegan paella overlooking the Coll de Rates to elegant dining and hidden village gems.

Whether you're following our Mountain Art Trail or simply exploring the inland Costa Blanca, we hope you'll enjoy them as much as we do.

Tàrbena

Finca Restaurante Sa Canterella

An unexpected find on the road between Bolulla and Tàrbena. Popular with cyclists, it offers a wide selections of vegetarian and vegan dishes, together with excellent homemade desserts. The campsite and swimming pool also make it a pleasant stop on a warm day.

Finca Restaurante Sa Canterella, Tàrbena

Can Pinet

One of our own favourite village restaurants. A genuinely authentic local restaurant where vegetarian and vegan meals are happily prepared if you mention your dietary requirements when booking. A lovely place to experience traditional village hospitality.

Can pinet, Tàrbena

Cas Pelut

A third-generation family restaurant at the start of the Coll de Rates climb. In recent years it has embraced plant-based cooking, including an excellent vegan paella. The terrace enjoys magnificent mountain views.

The Terrace at Cas Pelut, Tàrbena

Can Sueño

A beautiful destination for special occasions on the Castell de Castells road. Elegant food in peaceful surroundings.

Fine Dining at Can Sueño, Tàrbena

Coll de Rates Restaurant

Sometimes the view is almost as memorable as the meal. Sitting at the summit, this is an ideal coffee, lunch or sunset stop while exploring the mountain roads and artistic villages.

Spectacular views from the terrace of the Coll de Rates Restaurant.

Parcent

El Paraíso

One of those restaurants that always feels welcoming. Every fideuà arrives with a sprig of rosemary set alight, filling the restaurant with its wonderful aroma. Their complete vegan menu makes it perfect for mixed groups where some diners prefer meat and others don't.

El Paraiso Restaurant, Parcent

Victoria Station

British-owned and probably offering the largest vegetarian and vegan selection in this part of the Marina Alta. Relaxed, friendly and consistently reliable.

Victoria Station restaurant, Parcent

Alcalalí

Ses Feixes

A modern, elegant restaurant that's ideal for celebrating something special. Creative cooking in beautiful surroundings.

Modern dining at Ses Feixes, Alcalali

Beniarbeig

Luleå

Attached to a wellness centre, this restaurant specialises in fresh, healthy food with an emphasis on plant-based cooking. Perfect after a morning exploring the villages.

Very healthy food at Luleå in Beniarbeig

Benidoleig

El Temple

Quite simply our favourite restaurant in the area. Creative vegetarian cuisine, welcoming owners and one of those places that always feels worth returning to.

Vegan and Vegetarian tapas in Benidoleig.

Vegetarian and Vegan-Friendly Restaurants in the Marina Alta

Whether you're following the Mountain Art Trail in search of creativity, enjoying a leisurely drive through the white villages, or simply looking for somewhere special to stop for lunch, we hope these vegetarian and vegan-Friendly Restaurants in the Marina Alta help you discover another side to the region.

For us, the inland Costa Blanca has always been about slowing down—taking time to enjoy the landscapes, meeting local people and finding those hidden places that make a journey memorable. Good food is simply part of that experience.

If you're planning your visit, why not continue exploring with our other guides? Discover the artistic villages that inspired this journey or find more ideas for spending a wonderful day in the mountains with family and friends.

We look forward to welcoming you to this beautiful corner of the Costa Blanca.

Where to Experience Real Local Nature in Costa Blanca (Beyond the Coast)

Mediterranean Life: Living With the Sun

The Mountain art Trail

The Mountain Art Trail of the Costa Blanca

Discover the Creative Villages of the Marina Alta

Most visitors come to the Costa Blanca for its beaches, dramatic mountain scenery and picturesque white villages. Yet hidden amongst the valleys of the Marina Alta is another landscape waiting to be discovered—a landscape shaped not only by nature, but by creativity.

Here, art doesn't live behind the walls of galleries. It spills onto village streets, climbs across whitewashed houses, appears unexpectedly around quiet corners and tells stories that belong to the people who live here.

Mural by Elena Lafuente and Eduardo Berazaluce, Tàrbena

Living and creating in these mountains has taught us that every village has its own creative voice. Some tell their stories through murals, others through poetry, sculpture or community traditions. As artists ourselves, we invite you to look beyond the scenery and discover the artistic soul of the Marina Alta.

Whether you are an artist, photographer, walker or simply someone who enjoys discovering places with character, this trail offers a different way to explore the inland Costa Blanca.

Stop One – Tàrbena

Where Creativity Belongs to Everyone

Nestled high in the mountains, Tàrbena has quietly become one of the Marina Alta's most creative villages.

Mural by Eduardo Berazaluce and Elena Lafuente, Tàrbena

Its colourful murals brighten unexpected corners, while every summer the streets themselves become a temporary canvas. Children are given a theme and, during a special evening, they paint directly onto the roads. By the following morning the village has become an open-air gallery filled with youthful imagination. Over the months the paintings gradually fade beneath the footsteps of neighbours and visitors, before a new generation creates them again the following year.

Tàrbena, where overnight the streets become a canvas.

It is a simple tradition, but one that says something important about Tàrbena.

Here, creativity belongs to everyone.

Es Llavadors, the annual exhibition in Tàrbena

This same philosophy continues each July when Es Llavadors, the historic village laundry, is transformed into a community art exhibition. Professional artists curate and hang the exhibition, yet there are no prizes and no judging. Anyone over the age of fourteen is welcome to exhibit alongside experienced artists.

The exhibition's guiding principle is beautifully simple:

Everyone Welcome.

It seems fitting that the exhibition takes place in the old laundry. Once, this was where neighbours gathered to wash clothes, exchange news and strengthen the social fabric of the village. Today it continues to bring people together—this time through paintings, sculpture, photography, ceramics, textiles and ideas. The conversations remain; only the medium has changed.

Stop Two – Kennie's House

A Mountain Landmark Born from One Imagination

Leaving Tàrbena towards Benigembla, the winding road across the Coll de Rates reveals one of the Marina Alta's most unexpected sights.

Kennie's House, Coll de Rates, Tàrbena

Known simply as Kennie's House, this extraordinary private home has become a landmark for travellers crossing the mountains.

Walls, terraces, sculptures and found objects combine to create an ever-changing personal environment unlike anywhere else in the region. Created entirely through one man's imagination, it reminds us that creativity doesn't always need a gallery, an exhibition or official recognition.

Sometimes it simply grows because someone feels compelled to create.

Many visitors stop to photograph the house before continuing their journey, and it has become such a familiar sight that it now appears as a destination on Google Maps.

Stop Three – Benigembla

Murals that Preserve Memory

Benigembla's contribution to the Mountain Art Trail has a different character.

Through the BIMAU mural project, walls have become storytellers.

Mural by Juandres Vera, Bemigembla

Scenes celebrating agriculture, family life and local traditions preserve memories that might otherwise disappear with time. Rather than decorating the village, the murals record its identity, honouring the generations who shaped life in these mountains.

Walking through Benigembla feels rather like walking through an illustrated history book, where everyday life becomes worthy of celebration.

Mural by Juandres Vera, Benigembla

Stop Four – Xaló

Where Poetry Becomes Public Art

In Xaló, creativity begins not with paint, but with words.

The Pinta'm un Poema (Paint Me a Poem) project grew from a conversation between friends who loved poetry and visual art. Their idea was wonderfully simple: instead of reading poems in books, why not encounter them while walking through the village itself?

Poem by Julia Vela, mural by Lois Jansen, Jalon

Local poets contributed their writing. Artists generously volunteered to create murals inspired by selected verses. Residents offered the walls of their homes, while the Town Council provided the materials and prepared the buildings where necessary.

The result is a unique open-air gallery where literature and painting become inseparable, inviting visitors to wander slowly through the streets, discovering poems transformed into images.

Anna and Lois Jansen, Jalon

Stop Five – Senija

An Open-Air Museum

The artistic journey continues in Senija, where contemporary murals have transformed parts of the village into an open-air museum.

Cicling Life Senija

Celebrating local culture, cycling and community life, these large-scale artworks create a dialogue between tradition and modern identity, demonstrating once again that every village chooses its own way of telling its story.

More Than a Collection of Murals

As you travel through these villages, a pattern begins to emerge.

Tàrbena celebrates participation.

Kennie's House celebrates individual expression.

Benigembla preserves memory.

Xaló gives poetry a place in the streets.

Senija turns the village itself into a gallery.

Each village has found its own creative voice.

Together they form something far greater than an art trail.

They reveal a region where creativity remains part of everyday life.

Plan Your Mountain Art Trail Costa Blanca

The villages of the Marina Alta are close enough to explore over a day or a leisurely weekend.

Take time to stop for coffee in the village squares, wander slowly through quiet streets, discover unexpected murals and enjoy the local restaurants along the way.

If you visit during July, don't miss the annual Es Llavadors Art Exhibition in Tàrbena, where artists and first-time exhibitors celebrate creativity together beneath one simple motto:

Everyone Welcome.

Los Artistas de Tàrbena

Discover the Artistic Soul of the Marina Alta

The mountain villages of the Marina Alta are often celebrated for their scenery, almond blossom and walking trails.

Yet those who take time to look a little closer discover something equally remarkable.

Creativity lives here.

It appears on whitewashed walls, beneath your feet on painted streets, in poems, in old laundries, in community projects and sometimes in the extraordinary vision of a single individual.

The Mountain Art Trail invites you to slow down, explore these villages and experience a side of the Costa Blanca that many visitors never see.

Because the true beauty of these mountains lies not only in the landscape, but in the people who continue to shape it through imagination, generosity and creativity.

Sunrise with the Goats: a fox joins the Shepherd’s Dawn Walk

There is a particular kind of quiet that belongs only to dawn.

Before the roads begin to stir, before the valley fills with heat, the mountains hold a brief hour of stillness. The air is cool, the light is soft, and even the goats seem to move differently — less distracted, more purposeful, as if they know exactly where the morning is leading.

Sunrise over Mongo in Javea, as seen from Coll de rates, Tarbena.

This is the hour that inspired our new Shepherd’s Dawn Walk.

As summer arrives in the Quiet Costa Blanca, the rhythm of life on the farm changes. The work begins earlier, the goats head out sooner, and by mid-morning the heat is already gathering on the terraces. Rather than push against that seasonal rhythm, we decided to create a walk that works with it — a gentle sunrise experience that allows people to experience the mountain at one of its most peaceful and beautiful moments.

Out with the shepherd Don Henderson at Dawn.

And recently, on one of those dawn walks, something rather special happened.

As we climbed slowly through the early light with the goats, a wild fox appeared on the hillside beside us.

It wasn’t startled. It didn’t rush away. It simply moved quietly through the landscape, keeping a respectful distance but walking alongside us for a while, as though it had decided to join the morning procession.

A fox joins Euro Goat Trekkers on one of their Dawn Walks.

It was one of those moments that is difficult to stage and impossible to forget. The goats remained calm, the valley was still half-asleep, and for a few minutes the walk felt less like an activity and more like a glimpse into the older rhythm of the mountain — animals, paths and daybreak all sharing the same space.

Of course, wildlife can never be guaranteed, and that is part of what made the encounter so memorable. The fox was not there for us. It was simply following its own route through the dawn landscape, and we happened to be passing through it too.

Valentino meets a fox on his walk.

But perhaps that is exactly what the Shepherd’s Dawn Walk is about.

It is not a performance, and it is not a petting experience dressed up as a trek. It is a quiet, early-morning walk through the waking mountain in the company of our goats — a chance to experience the valley before the day begins in earnest.

We meet before sunrise and walk at a gentle pace as the light changes over the hills. The route has been designed for families, photographers, and anyone who enjoys being outdoors without needing to move fast. It is a sociable, relaxed walk rather than a strenuous hike, with time to pause, look out across the valley, and simply enjoy the atmosphere of the morning.

Don Henderson enjoys a coffee at sunrise.

At sunrise, we stop for coffee, tea and croissants while the first light reaches across the terraces. It is one of those simple moments that somehow feels far more memorable than it ought to — goats grazing nearby, bells sounding softly in the background, and the whole mountain slowly waking around you.

One of our large packgoats, Arthur looks across the valley to Bernia.

The Shepherd’s Dawn Walk is one of two sunrise experiences we now offer during the warmer months. While our Shepherd’s Dawn Trek is designed for those wanting a more immersive mountain route and a quicker pace, the Dawn Walk is the gentler option: easy, atmospheric and designed to be shared.

For us, that recent fox encounter captured something important about these summer walks. They are not simply about “doing an activity” before breakfast. They are about stepping briefly into the valley’s own timetable — moving through the landscape while it still belongs to birdsong, goat bells, cool air and the occasional surprise visitor from the

wild.

Sunrise over the Coll de Rates.

If you are visiting the Costa Blanca this summer and looking for a calm, memorable outdoor experience, the Shepherd’s Dawn Walk offers a very different way to begin the day.

You can find more information about our sunrise walks here:

Shepherd's Dawn walks

And if you’d like to read more about how summer changes life on the farm, you may also enjoy our article .

Mediterranean Life: Living with the Sun