Restaurante Mesón El Cordero
Tucked into a stone-walled dining room just steps from the monastery, Mesón El Cordero has been feeding pilgrims and travellers for decades with honest Extremaduran cooking built around the lamb and kid goat raised on the surrounding dehesa. The roast lamb shoulder — cordero al horno — is the dish that keeps people talking long after they've left the village.
What to Order
Start with a plate of jamón ibérico from the local Iberian pigs that roam the oak forests nearby — the acorn-fed flavour here is noticeably earthier and more complex than the mass-market versions you find in cities.
Follow with the cordero al horno: a whole shoulder slow-roasted until the meat collapses at the touch of a fork, served with roasted potatoes and a simple green salad that lets the meat speak for itself.
Finish with leche frita — fried custard squares dusted in cinnamon — or the monastery's own cherry liqueur poured over vanilla ice cream.
The Local Food Culture
Extremadura's cuisine is built on the dehesa ecosystem: acorn-fed pork, free-range lamb, wild mushrooms and the pimentón de la Vera smoked paprika that colours almost every dish on the menu.
Several other restaurants on and around Plaza Mayor serve similar menus; look for the hand-written daily specials boards, which reflect whatever the local farms have brought in that morning.
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