Best Restaurants in Lloret de Mar: Fine Dining, Local Gems & Where to Eat

Here is what almost no one tells you about eating in Lloret de Mar: behind the boardwalk burger joints and the sangria jugs served in buckets (literal buckets, lids and handles included), there is a genuinely rewarding food scene, quietly getting on with things while the rest of the Costa Brava gets the critical applause. The town has long been dismissed by food writers – the instinct, usually, is to look north to Girona or the Empordà – but that instinct misses something. Lloret sits on a stretch of coastline where the fishing boats still come in, where the market still operates with the kind of purpose markets should have, and where several kitchens are doing serious, honest work with Catalan ingredients. You just have to know where to look. And, occasionally, to walk a little away from the seafront.

The Fine Dining Scene in Lloret de Mar

Lloret de Mar does not currently hold a Michelin star, and it would be dishonest to suggest otherwise. What it does have, however, is a small but thoughtful fine dining culture that punches well above the town’s sunburned reputation. Several restaurants in and around the area draw on the extraordinary larder of the Costa Brava – locally caught seafood, wild mushrooms from the Gavarres hills, Empordà wines, and the kind of olive oil that makes you wonder what you have been doing with the supermarket stuff all your life.

For travellers staying in a luxury villa in Lloret de Mar, the real fine dining opportunity often comes closer to home: a number of villa properties offer private chef arrangements, where a local cook brings the market to your kitchen. This is, quietly, one of the better ways to eat in the region. There is something to be said for a five-course Catalan tasting menu eaten barefoot beside a private pool, without the formality of a reservation or the mild anxiety of the wine list.

When eating out at the higher end, look for restaurants that lead with catch-of-the-day rather than a laminated seafood platter. The quality gap between the two is considerable. Ask specifically about suquet de peix – a traditional Catalan fisherman’s stew with saffron, potato, and whatever came off the boats that morning – and you will quickly understand whether the kitchen is taking things seriously.

La Lonja – Where the Paella Earns Its Reputation

La Lonja consistently tops local restaurant rankings – and in a town where mediocre paella is available roughly every twelve steps, that distinction matters. The format is generous and intelligently structured: the paella menu includes tapas to start, a seafood or meat main, and wine or sangria to accompany. Portions are plentiful in the way that Spanish hospitality tends to demand rather than suggest, and the service has been praised repeatedly for being warm and attentive without crossing into the overfamiliar territory that can make tourists feel managed rather than welcomed.

The paella itself is the point. It arrives properly rested, with the socarrat – that caramelised crust at the bottom of the pan – intact and unapologetic. If you have ever been served a wet, mushroom-soft paella and been told it was authentic, La Lonja offers a useful corrective. Book ahead in peak season. The word is out.

Bodega Sa Xarxa – The Old Fisherman’s Cellar That Never Left

Some restaurants are built to look like they have history. Bodega Sa Xarxa actually has it. Established in 1969 as a traditional fisherman’s cellar, the bodega has been feeding locals and the occasional curious visitor for decades without feeling any particular need to update its brand identity. This is not a heritage concept. It is simply a place that has always existed and intends to continue doing so.

The menu leans firmly into the tapas tradition: cold cuts, pa amb tomàquet (that elemental Catalan combination of bread, tomato, and oil that should, by rights, need a Michelin star of its own), fish dishes, cheeses, and patatas bravas. The craft beer selection is thoughtful, and the local drinks – house wines, local vermut, whatever the staff recommend – reward curiosity. Come here for a long, unhurried late lunch. Come here specifically not for the Instagram moment, but for the kind of eating that reminds you why you travel in the first place.

Can Guidet – The Local’s Table

Restaurant Can Guidet sits just outside the busier part of the town centre, near the Evenia Olympic Palace, and it has the specific quiet confidence of a restaurant that does not need to advertise because it has regulars who have been coming for years. Catalan cooking at its most direct: tortillas, Catalan salads, grilled meats, generous plates. Nothing is trying to be anything other than what it is.

This is the kind of place that luxury travellers sometimes walk straight past on their way to somewhere more obviously considered, which is their loss. Can Guidet’s appeal is precisely its lack of theatre. Sit down, eat well, drink local wine, and watch how the table next to yours – almost certainly a family from the area – behaves around the bread basket. Then behave accordingly.

Marghe – Neapolitan Pizza, Properly Done

It would be easy to dismiss a pizzeria in a Spanish resort town as a concession to the path of least resistance. Marghe makes that easy dismissal difficult. Located close to the beach, it is the best-reviewed pizzeria in Lloret on TripAdvisor – and the menu earns that standing. The dough is handled with the kind of respect that Neapolitan tradition demands, the toppings range from classical to genuinely inventive, and the service is friendly without being frantic.

Not every meal on a luxury holiday needs to be a cultural deep-dive into Catalan heritage. Sometimes you want an excellent pizza near the sea, served by people who are clearly enjoying their work. Marghe delivers exactly that, and there is no reason to feel conflicted about it.

La Brava Steak House – For the Meat-Focused Evening

La Brava Steak House does not complicate its offer: this is the place to come for serious cuts of meat, cooked by a kitchen that treats sourcing and preparation as the whole point rather than the preamble. The selection of Spanish and international wines is broad enough to reward deliberation, and the room has the kind of low-key solidity that suggests the owners are more interested in what is on the plate than what is on the walls.

For groups staying in a villa who want a carnivore-focused night out – a celebration dinner, a group gathering that does not require navigating competing dietary preferences – La Brava offers a reliable, high-quality evening. The steaks are the ones to order. This will not surprise anyone who has read this far, but it bears saying.

Beach Clubs and Casual Dining

Lloret’s beach clubs run the full spectrum from perfectly pleasant to the sort of place where the music is loud enough to preclude conversation and the cocktail menu is illustrated with photographs of the cocktails. Choose accordingly. The better beach dining experiences tend to be at smaller operations along the quieter bays – Cala Canyelles and Santa Cristina beach both have calmer options with fresh fish, cold local rosé, and the kind of unhurried atmosphere that a Saturday afternoon at the main beach emphatically does not offer.

For casual seafood in particular, look for the small terrace restaurants where the catch is listed on a chalkboard that changes daily. The gambas a la plancha – grilled prawns with olive oil and sea salt – are reliably excellent at these spots and cost a fraction of what you would pay for an equivalent plate in Barcelona. Order bread. Demand extra napkins. Accept the mess as part of the experience.

Food Markets and Local Produce

Lloret’s market is worth visiting in the morning before the day properly accelerates. Fresh produce, local cheeses, olives, cured meats, and seasonal vegetables from the surrounding Girona region move through at pace. This is not a tourist market selling ceramic tiles and embroidered tablecloths – it is a working market where people buy things they intend to eat. The distinction matters.

For villa guests, the market is the best starting point for a private chef meal or for assembling the kind of terrace lunch that requires very little cooking but a great deal of good ingredient selection. Ripe tomatoes, a wedge of aged Manchego, a bottle of something cold from the local wine country – the Empordà DO produces whites and rosés that deserve far more international attention than they currently receive. Consider this a recommendation to investigate.

What to Drink: Wine, Vermut and Local Traditions

The default holiday drink in Lloret is sangria, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that when it is made with care rather than assembled from concentrate. The better restaurants make their own. Ask. The gap between good sangria and the other kind is significant enough to matter.

Beyond sangria, lean into the local wine culture. The Empordà denomination – just north of Lloret – produces Garnacha and Carignan blends with real character, and the rosés are some of the most food-friendly wines in Spain. Vermut, the Spanish vermut tradition specifically (not the Italian), is the correct aperitivo here: served cold, with an olive, in the early afternoon when the sun is at its most authoritative. It is one of those drinks that makes considerably more sense in context than anywhere else.

Reservation Tips and Practical Advice

July and August in Lloret de Mar operate at a different pitch from the rest of the year. Restaurants fill early and stay full late. For La Lonja and Can Guidet in particular, reservations are strongly advised for dinner service in peak season – walk-ins are possible, but patience is required and the better tables will have gone. Marghe and La Brava are similarly popular, and the beach clubs at Cala Canyelles book up for weekend lunches faster than seems reasonable.

Lunch, as a strategy, is worth reconsidering. The menú del día – a two or three course set lunch, typically including wine or water – is one of Spain’s great democratic institutions, and several of Lloret’s better restaurants offer versions that represent extraordinary value by any standard. Eating your main meal at lunch and grazing lightly in the evening is also, it should be noted, exactly what the locals do. There is usually a reason for that.

For a complete overview of the destination – beaches, day trips, what to do and when to go – the full Lloret de Mar Travel Guide covers everything in detail.

And if the idea of the best restaurants in Lloret de Mar fine dining local gems and where to eat eventually giving way to a private chef experience sounds appealing – it should – a luxury villa in Lloret de Mar with private chef arrangements offers the best of both worlds: the Costa Brava’s extraordinary ingredients, prepared for you, on your own terms, on your own terrace. It is, if we are being honest, a very good problem to have.