For those in the know, the northern Spanish region of Castile and León has long been a favorite weekend escape for food-loving Madrileños, who make the pilgrimage to eat morcilla de Burgos (blood sausage) at the famed roadside restaurant Landa or tuck into crisp-skinned cochinillo (roast suckling pig) at Segovia’s venerable Mesón de Cándido. After all, this vast autonomous community—the largest in Spain, spanning nine provinces including Salamanca and Valladolid—is one of the great cradles of Spanish gastronomy, producing famed products such as like jamón de Guijuelo (among the country’s most prized Ibérico hams), creamy judiones de La Granja beans, and queso Zamorano (a hard sheep’s-milk cheese often compared to Manchego).
Yet among international travelers, this pastoral heartland has never inspired the same foodie fantasies as the Basque Country or Catalonia. “I think our identity has been greatly diluted in the national imagination,” says chef Anaí Meléndez of Valladolid’s hotspot Caín. “Much of inland Spain is seen as a homogeneous mass with Madrid at its center, leaving only the peripheries to claim an independent narrative.”
That narrative is finally shifting. Meléndez joins a wave of chefs returning home from Madrid, Barcelona, and other well-established culinary centers to reclaim the region’s gastronomic heritage. These young chefs are opening destination-worthy restaurants in storybook towns, turning humble stews, roasted meat, and local Ribera del Duero wines into expressions of contemporary Castilian pride. “Things are happening in very small places that nobody used to pay attention to,” says Pablo González of La Trébede, a modest country restaurant that earned Michelin buzz within a year of its debut. “A new cuisine is being born here—one that honors what came before. I have the feeling Castile and León will soon be a global reference.”
Happily for travelers, many of the region’s most exciting openings are unfolding inside design-forward independent hotels. In Salamanca, celebrated chef José Manuel Pascua has transformed a 19th-century palace into Eunice Gastronomic Hotel, the city’s first chef-owned boutique stay, where mornings begin with a multi-course tasting breakfast and end with dinner at the pilgrimage-worthy Pascua restaurant. Over in Ávila, La Casa del Presidente—the former summer retreat of Spain’s first democratically elected prime minister, Adolfo Suárez—is emerging as one of the country’s top gastro-hotels, thanks to Caleña, a buzzy new restaurant from twenty-something chefs Diego Sanz and Cristina Massuh.
And with Six Senses set to debut its first mainland Spain property in Ávila in 2026, now’s the moment to plan a culinary deep dive through Castile and León before the rest of the world catches on. Below, find the best new restaurants and standout hotels to add to your itinerary.
Where to Stay
Salamanca’s first design-forward, chef-owned boutique hotel, Eunice Gastronomic Hotel is the vision of celebrated local chef José Manuel Pascua, who rose to fame after rebooting nearby Bambú Tapas Brasas—the beloved Salamanca restaurant his grandmother founded in the 1980s. In March 2024, Pascua turned to hospitality with the launch of a 13-room property set inside a 19th-century palace adjacent to the Plaza de Monterrey. The intimate, jewel box–like interiors are filled with artwork by Iberian heavyweights including Catalan sculptor Jaume Plensa and Portuguese artist José Pedro Croft, plus textiles decorated with traditional embroidery from the Sierra de Francia.“This hotel is an homage to the generation of women my grandmother belonged to, who worked to provide stability, comfort, and security to their families,” explains Pascua.
At the center of the property is a serene courtyard garden designed by Madrid-based studio Benavides Laperche (which has collaborated on projects with Herzog de Meuron and Lázaro Rosa-Violán Estudio, among others). It’s a tranquil place to unwind before or after indulging in the tasting menu or à la carte experience at Pascua, a fine-dining temple where “purist,” seasonally driven dishes take the spotlight, highlighting shifting flavors like buttery Swiss chard, rabito de cerdo, Iberian pork shoulder, and sobrasada ibérica. While it’s tempting to eat everything in sight, you’ll want to arrive hungry in the morning: the hotel’s decadent breakfast—served in a light-filled dining room anchored by a restored antique kitchen—has become one of the most talked-about meals in town, with silver platters piled high with Salamanca pastries such as bamba de nata and bollo maimón (sponge cake), plus fresh fruit, yogurt, homemade granola, and an array of homemade jams.
The former home of Spain’s first democratically elected prime minister, Adolfo Suárez, La Casa del Presidente is one of Ávila’s most regal retreats, where secret trapdoors, clubby seating areas lined with books and 19th-century French furniture, and manicured gardens still make it feel like a politician’s private residence. The best rooms look directly onto the town’s UNESCO-protected medieval wall, with luxuries like Loewe quilts, claw-foot tubs, and Eight Bob bath products (the line is known for an eau de toilette favored by John F. Kennedy—a reference staff often use to orient foreign guests to Suárez). In summer, the place to be is the showpiece outdoor pool, with views of the ancient walls and a small chiringuito serving beachy drinks and bites.
The hotel’s centerpiece is Caleña, a fine-dining restaurant launched in November 2024 and awarded a Repsol Sol within its first six months. Led by 25-year-old chef Diego Sanz, who trained in Michelin-starred kitchens including Copenhagen’s Noma, alongside 29-year-old Cristina Massuh, the glass-walled dining room serves the region’s famed spoon dishes, stews, and pickled preparations—think Chinese eggplant with jowl and pico de gallo, or an exquisite Castilian-style carbonara (with green beans in place of noodles, torrezno from Ávila, and Canto Viejo cheese). It’s destined to become one of Spain’s greats, so book now while you still can.
For many Spaniards, it’s inconceivable to drive north from Madrid along the A-1 highway (one of the country’s major north-south arteries) and not stop for a meal at Landa, the famed roadside restaurant and hotel that counts Audrey Hepburn, Brigitte Bardot, and King Juan Carlos among its VIP guests. Now welcoming the fourth generation of clients, the Landa restaurant is famed for elevating the local delicacy, morcillas de Burgos (black pudding), to a place of honor. “Before then, it had been relegated to the role of a side dish in the classic Castilian stew olla podrida,” explains Guzmán Alameda Landa, whose grandfather Jesús Landa and his Burgos-born grandmother, Carmela Vicente, founded the restaurant in 1959.
Beyond the sprawling restaurant, the 35 guest rooms have a regal feel, owing to their setting in a 14th-century tower that was moved from the nearby town of Albillos to the Landa property. Dreamed up by Spanish interior designer Pascua Ortega, the antique-filled guestrooms combine botanical wallpaper, four-poster beds wrapped in linen sheets (washed and ironed at the Royal Monastery of Las Huelgas), and clawfoot tubs. While the property is technically a roadside stop, the dreamy gothic-inspired swimming pool—all colonnaded ceilings and ornate glass windows—will have you rethinking the rest of your itinerary.
Located inside the centuries-old tavern on Pedraza’s main square, this four-room gastro-hotel is the passion project of Spanish chef Samantha Vallejo-Nágera of MásterChef fame, together with her French-born mother, Sabine Déroulède, and sister, interior designer Mafalda Muñoz. The family preserved the building’s original beams, clay tiles, and stone walls while layering in 17th-century mirrors, custom furniture by Madrid-based firm Casa Muñoz, Louis XIII armchairs, and jute rugs. Some rooms look out over Pedraza’s medieval square, while the others offer sweeping views of the Guadarrama Mountains.
The hotel’s atmospheric tavern feels like stepping back in time, with classic bullfighting posters pinned on whitewashed plaster walls, rustic wooden furniture, and wrought-iron wall sconces. It’s a singular setting for tucking into belly-warming dishes like pork cheek cannelloni or cheese flan brûlée. For breakfast, dig into Lenôtre pastries before embarking on a concierge-organized experience, such as horseback riding or a day-long excursion with a local shepherd.
Where to Eat
In 2024, Barro’s chef-owner Carlos Casillas made history as the youngest Spanish chef to receive a Michelin star at just 25. Born in Ávila, Casillas trained at the Basque Culinary Center and later returned to his hometown with several culinary-school colleagues to open Barro in a 250-year-old flour mill on the banks of the Adaja River, just outside the city’s UNESCO-listed walls. “Our generation had the chance to train elsewhere,” Casillas says. “There is always the option to come back and reinvest that value in the place you are from.” The dining room, done up in adobe tones and vaulted wooden ceiling beams, feels like a warm country manor.
Two tasting menus present contemporary Castilian cooking that highlights ingredients from more than sixty local producers, while the wine list runs to about 1,180 labels, with particular attention on bottles from Ávila. A signature plate, Campo Amarillo (“Yellow Field”), pairs tender local rabbit with buttery legumes and nods to Spanish poet Antonio Machado’s “Campos de Castilla.” After dinner, guests can slip into the subterranean Fango Bar for cocktails. The team has also opened the on-site Sucro, which serves relaxed, locally inflected dishes and pours from a cellar of more than 1,000 bottles, with a focus on the Garnachas of the nearby Gredos range.
Chef Ricardo Temiño trained with the legendary Paul Bocuse and traveled in search of sybaritic pleasures—from Lyon to Tokyo—before launching his celebrated La Fábrica in his hometown of Burgos. His new restaurant, which earned a Michelin star within a year of opening, draws on the stories of pilgrims who have passed through the Castilian city along its historic routes, including the Camino de Santiago, the Route of El Cid, and the little-known Paprika Route of Christopher Columbus.
The experience begins in the subterranean wine cellar—home to some 400 labels and nearly 2,000 bottles—where guests sip vermouth cocktails and watch Temiño prepare appetizers such as a traditional suckling-lamb skewer with candied red pepper and a pâté en croûte that gives the French classic a Burgos twist, incorporating ear, snout, foie, blood sausage, dried apricots, and pistachios. After touring the open kitchen and the meat-maturation room, guests are seated in the dining rooms—formerly a hostel for pilgrims— and treated to two different tasting menus. A highlight is the suckling lamb, served in two courses: first, a suckling-lamb “royal” with a liquid salad (blended lettuce and tomato hearts); second, 15-day aged lamb loin served with textures of beetroot, sorrel, and a reduced lamb rib sauce.
Pushed out of Madrid by gentrification, chef Anaí Meléndez returned to her hometown of Nava del Rey (population 2,000), in Valladolid, to launch a restaurant centered on charcoal grills and local produce. The soaring dining room is punk-meets-ecclesiastical: dark walls, exposed masonry, chains hanging like church arches, pops of blood-red, and a large golden disc evocative of a reredos (the ornamented screen behind an altar). It’s an irreverent, free-spirited setting for tender cuts cooked over embers, such as lamb lashed to a cross-shaped stake and turned on a spit for five hours, or traditional dishes with a twist, like pardina lentils with pickled partridge. The wine list is a highlight, featuring only producers from Castile and León, 95% of which are small, family-run wineries specializing in low-intervention bottles.
Despite being just off the A-6—the highway linking Madrid with Galicia via Castile and León—the Castilian hamlet of Pobladura del Valle has never attracted its share of travelers. Then, in 2024—and at the age of just 23—chef Pablo Gonález launched this elevated tavern restaurant on the edge of town, luring VIP guests like Madrid regional leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso and even catching the attention of the Michelin Guide.
For Gonález, who trained at the Basque Culinary Center and worked at some of the region’s Michelin-starred kitchens, the food of Castile y Leon comes down to “intense, honest flavors,” he says. In his kitchen, these flavors are achieved through sustainably-sourced ingredients, including game from Tierra de Campos, wine from El Bierzo, the mushrooms of Sanabria, the cheese of Zamora, and the trout of León. “It’s cooking without artifice, with respect for the people who work the land and care for the animals,” he says. Pull up a seat in the warm, inviting dining room—decorated with farm tools, a pitched wooden ceiling, and a crackling fireplace—and tuck into Leonese-style black pudding with pine nuts and Reinette apples, duck micuit with fig jam, and confit pig’s ear with a sun-dried tomato and mussel salsa brava.