7 Best Restaurants in Galicia and Asturias, Spain

A solid bet on a street packed with middling tourist eateries, this seafood restaurant has polished wood floors and a bustling terrace. The caldo gallego, santiaguiños (slipper lobsters), arroz con bogavante (rice with lobster), and seafood empanadas are superb—as any of the university-faculty regulars will tell you.

Decorated with an ornate barometer to gauge the famously unpredictable local weather, this family-run seafood spot is in a 19th-century building on the harbor. In addition to an inexpensive menú del día (prix fixe), there's outstanding seafood à la carte including fried calamares (squid) and uni-stuffed asparagus. If there were ever a place to splurge on bogavante, large-claw lobster, it's here. For dessert, the fig ice cream is delicious.

This casual seafood spot around the corner from the Hostal de los Reyes Católicos specializes in shellfish ranging from melt-in-your-mouth battered mini-scallops to a take-no-prisoners variado de mariscos platter with langoustines, king prawns, crab, and percebes (barnacles, a local delicacy).

Llanes has prettier, cleaner, and less noisy places to enjoy seafood, but if you feel like rubbing shoulders with Asturian fishermen and eating their catch cooked just the way they like it, then this spot by the port, guarded by a parrot named Paco, is for you. The glassed-in terrace has a view of the small harbor bobbing with boats, and the menu offers such local classics as baby squid in ink, spider crab, seafood meatballs, and razor clams, all with a minimum of fuss but maximum value.

This sophisticated sea-foam-green dining room is the perfect place to feast on fresh fish while sipping Albariño. Don't miss the mussels with béchamel, a dish that La Penela is locally famous for. If shellfish isn't your speed, the roast veal is also popular. The restaurant occupies a modernist building on a corner of the lively Praza de María Pita. Some tables have views of the harbor, or you can eat in a glassed-in terrace on the square.

Across from the parador, this long-established restaurant produces inventive dishes like scallop salad, mango soup with mascarpone ice cream, and salmon with anchovy mayonnaise. Specialties include arroz de marisco caldoso (shellfish, stock, and rice).