Our post “Visit Valencia in 3 days” ended with the following words: “Although it might seem odd that eating a paella in a restaurant can be a full-day activity, but in our next post you will discover that eating a paella in the Barraca de Toni Montoliu is much more than just tasting the famous Valencian rice dish. As a teaser, we will leave you for now with a photo of the paella prepared in this fascinating restaurant, and in our next piece you will find out why eating in Barraca de Toni Montoliu is a not-to-be-missed thing to do in Valencia.”
And here we come at our last post about 3 days in Valencia.
Are you prepared to experience the best paella in Valencia?
So here we are to take you on another adventure and show you another place that you must visit in Valencia
The Barraca de Toni Montoliu is found in a neighborhood of Valencia called Huerta, which literally means vegetable garden. Mr. Montoliu is someone who has always lived in the countryside raising crops and animals. He lives very attached to his origins and the local traditions of his land, and with a lot of pleasure he takes you on a day trip to the past.
Spending a day in the Barraca di Toni Montoliu is itself an entertaining and pleasant activity. The experience starts with picking up vegetables for your own salad in the garden. While you are there, Toni Montoliu shows what is ready to be picked up and he also shares with you his knowledge about vegetables, and answers all possible questions you might have about a vegetable garden.
The original paella, which is from Valencia, is not prepared with seafood (as many people who ate their first paella in Barcelona think) but with chicken, rabbit and vegetables. If you want, Toni Montogliu will teach you how to cook his famous paella. Under his and his assistant’s supervision, you can basically cook the paella on your own following their indications step by step. It’s worth paying attention, because you will learn the secrets of a paella, which is recognized to be one of the best ones in Valencia.
After so much work, the moment of pleasure arrives and you will enjoy the best paella you have ever eaten, accompanied with other fresh products (salad, bread and hummus amongst others) of the area, fulfilling all possible requirements to be a “Km 0 restaurant” as the logo on the wall informs us about that. As Mr. Montoliu tells you with his cute English accent, the philosophy of the restaurant is “from the field to the table”.
Nevertheless, the experience is not finished with this fantastic dish, Toni Montoliu later will take you on a ride in his horse carriage to visit one of the “barracas” (a small house typical of the area) that belongs to his grandparents’ and which house has conserved its original structure.
He also assembled antique tools, which were used before to cultivate the land, in a small museum that is well worth visiting.
If you don’t have time to spend a whole day there, but you want to eat an amazing Valencian paella, you can certainly do that. In any case reservation is necessary.
With this series of articles about Valencia, we hope to have made you want to visit Valencia, and we hope our recommendations will help you to enjoy all the things you have to do in Valencia.
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