Eating Out in Jerez – The Best Jerez Tapas Bars and Restaurants

Eating out in Jerez is all about grazing on Spanish tapas and grazing on Spanish tapas is what you should do in Southern Spain’s food destination of Jerez de la Frontera. Even when the locals sit down to eat in a restaurant, in contrast to snacking while standing up at the bar, which seems more popular in cities such as Seville and Granada, they order a few small plates, then another round when they’re done, and rarely order more than a couple of mains. So do as the locals do in Jerez and leisurely graze.

Eating out in Jerez de la Frontera in Southern Spain, one of our favourites stop on our global grand tour, was a real delight. Whether you’re tapas bar hopping or sitting down to tuck into plates of comfort food, the food in Jerez is some of the best food in Spain.

Below is a selection of our favourite meals from two weeks of eating out in Jerez, from grazing at tapas bars to digging into hearty traditional dishes in local restaurants. We ate at every place once, and, er, some even twice, and we’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

Eating Out in Jerez in Southern Spain

These are our picks of the best restaurants and tapas bars in Jerez.

Meson del Asador

When it comes to eating out in Jerez, this would have to be our pick of the best restaurants and tapas bars, and quickly became our favourite spot. One for the meat lovers, Meson del Asador is located in an atmospheric space at Remedios 4, with a long bar dominating the room. Mouthwatering jamon hang from the ceiling behind the counter and the heavy wooden tables are covered with red and white checked tablecloths.

An asador is a restaurant specialising in cooking over fire and charcoal, whether it’s barbecue, grilling and roasting, generally using a spit or rotisserie, and grilling is the certainly the specialty at Meson del Asador. You can choose from a long list of meat-focused tapas and raciones (plates a little larger than tapas) or an enormous plates of steaks and other grilled meats. If you’ve been in Southern Spain a while, try some of the Galician specialties.

There was nothing we didn’t love, but we have to confess: what we mainly returned for the second time was the tabla de patatas con salsas – a mountain of the most heavenly potatoes on earth piled onto a board with four dipping sauces or salsas. These included a very tasty aioli (garlic mayonnaise) or alioli in Spanish – and allioli in Catalan, from the words for garlic (all) and oil (oli), reflecting its Catalan origin.

Something between a fried potato slice and a freshly fried potato crisps, these fried potatoes were crunchy on the outside and soft inside, the delicious flavour of the potatoes enhanced by the quality of the olive oil, and sea salt grains sprinkled on top. It’s truly frightening how much of this delightful dish we ate.

Bar Juanito

This very pleasant spot is known for its deft handling of classic tapas dishes. You can dine outside on the prettily painted green, rickety, wooden chairs and tables on the cobblestones of the Pescadera Vieja (old fish market), eat inside standing up at a tiled bar, or you can sit down in the larger, more formal space out the back.

While some of its clientele suggested that it must be in a guidebook, don’t let that stop you. Because the friendly service and fine tapas demonstrates that travel guidebooks can get it right.

While the specialty here is artichokes, the alcachofa juanito was actually the only disappointing dish we had, way over-cooked, mushy, and lacking flavour, however, everything else was incredibly delicious.

Highlights were some melt-in-the-mouth albondigas oloroso (meatballs in the local sweet sherry), and a sublime carne de toro con patatas, which fell off the bone. That got me thinking about a bull-related recipe for our series The Dish on recipes for the quintessential dishes of the places we’re travelling to this.

El Gallo Azul

Prop yourself up at the bar, hop atop a stool at one of the barrel-tables, or ease back into a chair if the sun is shining at one of the outside tables at this characterful bar (recommended to us by Belen from Jerez’ famous Spanish riding school) located in one of Jerez’s most splendid buildings, and something of a landmark, on Santamaria 2.

While you’ll find all the usual suspects when it comes to tapas on the menu, under the glass display counter there’ll be an array of modern (and muy rico) tapas that we suggest you opt for instead.

We tried a delicious pulpo con patatas chafadas (super thin slices of tender octopus on mashed potatoes), milhojas de foie y queso de cabra caramelizado (foie gras with caramelised goats cheese), and lasaña de boquerones marinados con verduras asados (tiny layered squares of fresh marinated anchovies with grilled vegetables). A single tapa serving included two pieces which at €2.40 was great value.

La Cruz Blanca

When it comes to eating out in Jerez, you can’t go wrong with this local favourite. Located at Consistorio 16 on a lovely square with shady alfresco seating outside and an interior that gets crammed with locals for lunch and dinner, this place must be one of the most popular tapas bars in Jerez.

The place just buzzes with the sound of groups of friends enjoying each other’s company and the delicious tapas on offer. A warning though: the ‘½ raciones’ of hearty, rustic, local dishes are absolutely enormous.

Even if you’re sitting down at a table rather than eating at a bar you’re much better off ordering the tapas size rather than the raciones unless you’re famished or a masochist. We loved the ragut de setas al oloroso viejo (mushrooms in an old sweet sherry), the rabo de toro, which fell off the bone and melted in our mouths, and the tasty albondigas, served on soft potatoes that soaked up the sweet gravy, were sublime.

Meson El Patio

A very atmospheric place, with paintings of local art covering the walls and a wonderful collection of vintage transistor radios, this is a great choice for meat lovers and became one of our favourite places for eating out in Jerez.

Locals casually imbibing and nibbling sit on one side of the room, while the more serious diners sit on the other. The menu is (thankfully) short compared to most restaurants in Jerez, but what they do, they do very well.

We started with a lovely consóme de Jerez (sherry consóme) and some of the tastiest chicken and ham croquetas caseras we’ve ever had, followed by huge plates of paletilla de cordero asado con fino de la tierra (which was translated on the menu as “roast lamb shoulder with thin soil”) and cochinillo rechal asado al oloroso viejo (translated on the menu as “roast suckling pig to man olorosso”! Make of that what you will!).

Both dishes were on the pricey side for Jerez at €20 each, however, one dish could easily have served two people, and if we weren’t sampling the food to write about for you, our readers, we would have followed the locals and simply ordered one main each. The sacrifices we make!

La Abaceria Cruz Vieja

Flamenco guitarist Sebastian, who gave Terence some flamenco guitar lessons, took us to La Abaceria Cruz Vieja, ran by the friendly Pepe and located on the corner of calles Zarza and Ramon de Cala in the quaint neighbourhood of San Miguel. La Abaceria is a local bar of the kind you can very easily keep returning to.

La Abaceria means ‘corner store’ and traditionally these were places where you’d buy your basic provisions, which is why the sandstone walls of this lovingly restored interior feature shelves lined with tinned foods with retro labels, big jars of enticing preserves, and bottles of gorgeous green virgin olive oils.

This friendly bar is the place to come for a truly local experience and some traditional local specialties, such as a very tasty, hearty menudo (tripe with chickpeas), papas con melva (potatoes with tuna), and berza Jerezana (a porky cabbage, chickpea and vegetable stew), all washed down with local sherry of course.