All i Pebre at Restaurante El Grao
All i pebre — a slow-cooked stew of eel, garlic, paprika and olive oil — is the signature dish of the Valencian coast, and the fishing neighbourhood of El Grau de Gandia is one of the best places in the region to eat it in genuinely unpretentious surroundings. Restaurante El Grao, a family-run taberna a short walk from the fishing port, has been serving the real version for decades.
The dish and the place
All i pebre is deceptively simple: freshwater or brackish-water eel (anguila) is simmered with garlic, ñora peppers, smoked paprika, potato and good local olive oil until the broth turns a deep brick-red and the eel falls from the bone. It is earthy, garlicky and intensely flavoured — nothing like the sanitised fish stews served in tourist restaurants along the coast. At El Grao, it arrives in a traditional clay cazuela with crusty bread for mopping.
The restaurant itself is a no-frills room with paper tablecloths, a handwritten daily menu on a chalkboard and a television in the corner showing football. This is precisely the point: it is where local fishermen, market traders and Gandia families eat on a Sunday, not where tourists are expected. The staff are warm if you make any attempt at Spanish or Valencian.
What else to order
The arrós a banda — rice cooked separately in a rich fish stock, served with alioli — is another local essential and El Grao does a very good version. Start with the esgarraet, a Valencian salad of roasted red peppers and salt cod dressed with olive oil, which appears on almost every table as a free tapa with your first drink.
The house wine is a serviceable local white from the Safor, served cold in a carafe. Finish with a glass of mistela, the sweet local fortified wine made from Moscatel grapes grown in the hills behind Gandia — it is the traditional way to end a long lunch in this part of Valencia.
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