10-07-2025
Spain's Paella Honors Its Roots In The Rice-Growing Region Of Valencia
Valencian paella, cooked over a wood fire
When it comes to dining in Spain's Valencia region, there is one humble ingredient that has pride of place. Rice is at the center of the area's cuisine and appears in many of its recipes, even earning its own section on some local menus. It is also the star of paella, Valencia's most famous culinary offering and the dish that is most closely identified with all of Spain. (Sorry, gazpacho and croquetas. Talk to me when you get your own emoji.) While paella has traveled far beyond Spain's borders—often in versions that are blasphemous to the locals—this region is its ancestral home.
The Grain That Reigns Supreme
Located on the country's eastern coast, the Comunitat Valenciana, as it is known in the local language, is divided into three provinces—Valencia, Alicante and Castellón—with the region's eponymous capital being the third largest city in Spain after Madrid and Barcelona. But in addition to the provincial capitals of Valencia, Alicante and Castellón de la Plana, and the pretty little beach towns along the Costa Blanca, Valencia is also home to thousands of farms.
While many of them cultivate vegetables and fruits (¡Hola, Valencia oranges!), the attention-grabbing jewel of this landscape is the crop that comes from L'Albufera, Spain's largest lake. A mosaic of coastal wetlands surrounded by marshes, dunes and paddy fields, L'Albufera produces the short-grain rice that is essential to making a true Valencian paella.
Valencia's Albufera wetlands, with an albuferenc (the lagoon's traditional type of boat) in the ... More foreground
This lagoon is the source of approximately 15% of the rice consumed by Spaniards. Three varieties dominate here—senia, bomba and albufera—each with slightly different qualities, but all are notable for their ability to absorb double or triple their volume in liquid. It's this attribute that makes them the perfect vehicle for paella valenciana, highlighting whatever flavors are added during the cooking process. A true paella connoisseur will always taste the rice first; the other ingredients are there to support this tiny little diva.
Paella Is A Collective Delight
The word 'paella' refers to the flat round pan in which the dish is cooked, so the name gets applied to rice that's combined with a range of miscellaneous ingredients. You will see the term used to describe recipes that include chorizo, garlic, seafood and other elements, which would be sacrilegious in a true Valencian paella. In fact, locals use a different (and pejorative) term for the other versions: arroz con cosas, or rice with things. Paella valenciana should feature chicken, rabbit, garrofó (a kind of butter bean), ferradura (flat green beans), tomatoes, saffron, smoked paprika and salt, although some valencianos will also add artichokes, snails and/or duck.
Paella pans for sale in Valencia
Paella began as a practical way to feed workers on area farms, and its preparation relied on ingredients that were readily available. To maximize its flavor, paella valenciana is cooked over an open flame, preferably using orangewood from local citrus orchards as well as some charred rosemary sprigs, to lend the herb's strong aromatic notes. The shallow pan allows these scents to permeate the rice and creates the ever-important socarrat—a golden, slightly crusty texture that is pure savory deliciousness and that distinguishes paella valenciana from the mushy rice casseroles you'll find is many restaurants outside the region.
Paella's consumption has long been a collective experience, a reflection of rural communities that were built on cooperation among neighbors. Folks gathered around the pan, spoon in hand, with each person eating from their own section of the large pizza-shaped vessel. Even today, the dish retains these communal roots and is often the star of a big Sunday lunch or festive gathering of family and friends.
Where to Eat Paella Valenciana
In Valencia, there seem to be nearly as many paella restaurants as there are grains of rice in each flat pan. An excellent place to enjoy true paella valenciana is Nou Racó, which is located in the Albufera lagoon, about 10 kilometers from the city's center. The restaurant complex includes a preserved barraca, a traditional Valencian farmhouse (a white structure with a steeply sloped roof covered in reeds). While you can reach Nou Racó in a car, it's much nicer to travel the last stretch of the journey by water, taking a short ride in an albuferenc, the small traditional boats that navigate these wetlands. Along the way, the ornithology-obsessed in your group can try to spot some of the 350 bird species that reside in or migrate through the area.
If you'd prefer to stay within Valencia's city limits, there's the legendary Casa Carmela. Founded by José Belenguer in the early 1920s as a beach shack, it's now run by the fourth generation of his family and turns out an average of 25 paellas per meal service.
Family tradition is also central to Restaurante Levante, founded by the parents of chef Rafael Vidal over 50 years ago. His forebears became famous for their excellent paella, famously serving it to the King of Spain in 1976, and Vidal has helped the dish reach an even wider audience since then. When celebrity chef José Andrés first opened his Leña in NYC, a restaurant focused on open-fire cooking, he flew Vidal over to train the team on proper paella-making technique. Although Vidal's family now has a second Levante location in downtown Valencia, history buffs will want to drive a half-hour northwest to the village of Benisanó, to dine at the original outpost.
Going Beyond Paella
The fideuà at Nou Racó in the Albufera lagoon
In a rice-growing powerhouse like Valencia, however, paella is only one of many recipes to feature the crop. To name just a few others, there's arroz a banda, where the fish that's used to make stock in which to cook the rice is served separately from the cooked grains; arroz del senyoret, a seafood and rice dish; and arroz negro, where the grains are tinted black with squid ink. If you get tired of rice (shhh, don't tell the locals), there's also fideuà, a close relative of paella in which the short-grain rice is substituted with small skinny noodles that crisp up slightly when cooked. (Nou Racó serves up an excellent version of this dish.)
Would you prefer a soupier rice dish with seafood? Head south for a bowl of caldero. Although some associate caldero with the neighboring region of Murcia, you can find excellent versions in the Valencian province of Alicante, particularly on the island of Tabarca.
Like paella, caldero takes its name from the vessel in which it is cooked—a large soup pot, where seafood, tomatoes and rice are layered with fish broth and ñoras (small, round sun-dried peppers) to produce a result that is more than the sum of its parts. In the coastal town of Benidorm, the seafood restaurant Posada del Mar has been ladling up richly flavored bowls of caldero for more than four decades, served with a fluffy mound of garlicky egg-free alioli on the side. (Dollop generously.) Grab a seat at one of the restaurant's oceanfront tables, order a crisp glass of white wine and a bowl of caldero, and exhale.
[But wait! There's much more to Valencian cuisine than rice. Check back in a few days for the second installment on the area's most emblematic culinary offerings.]
