Food History of Benidorm

Key eras

1325: the first charter

Admiral Bernat de Sarrià granted Benidorm its Carta Puebla on 8 May 1325, founding the walled town and castle on the headland, where an Arab farmstead had stood at Lliriets. Berber pirate raids around 1410 and in 1448 carried off most of its people, and by 1520 the town was all but empty.

1666: water and the huerta

Beatriu Fajardo de Mendoza, lady of Polop and Benidorm, granted a second charter in 1666. The Sèquia Mare, an irrigation channel bringing water from Polop, let new settlers farm the plain; huerta greens and pulses are still the base of Benidorm's rice with spinach and its broad-bean stews.

18th century to 1952: the almadraba town

Benidorm grew from about 216 households in 1715 to some 2,700 people by the end of the century on almadraba tuna fishing. Its men were sought along the coast from Roses to Morocco to set the tuna nets into the 1950s; the main local almadraba closed in 1952, and Barbate's is still owned by Benidorm descendants.

Around 1900: vines, phylloxera and emigration

Wine and raisins gave the town a brief boom until phylloxera ruined the vines in the early 20th century, just as the merchant navy lost its trade with the end of the colonies in 1898. Many families left for Cuba, Barcelona's harbour district and the coast of Cádiz.

1956 to 1967: the tourist plan

In 1956, under mayor Pedro Zaragoza Orts, the town hall approved an urban plan for a resort city of wide avenues following the beaches. Charter flights followed when Alicante-Elche airport opened in 1967, and Basque visitors arriving from the 1960s brought the pintxo bars of Calle Santo Domingo.

2010 to today: Benidorm Gastronómico

Since 2010 the town hall and the ABRECA hospitality association have run Benidorm Gastronómico, a yearly calendar of food weeks; in 2026 it reached six events, from spoon dishes in February to traditional home cooking in November, alongside the TapaFest held during the Benidorm Fest song contest.

Immigrant influences

• Basque: Basque visitors who came from the 1960s turned Calle Santo Domingo into the zona de los vascos, a street of pintxo counters such as Pintxos Aurrera and La Tapería Aurrera.
• British: British holidaymakers and residents gave Rincón de Loix and Levante fish and chip shops such as Ray's 2, run by the same owners since 1985, and Irish pubs serving Sunday dinners.
• Dutch and Belgian: Dutch and Belgian regulars keep eetcafés such as Café De Kroon, with frikandel and Belgian beer, and Broodje Benidorm, a Dutch bakery opened in 2023.
• Xixona ice-cream makers: Xixona families made ice cream in summer and turrón in winter, and travelled to sell it; the one behind Helados Sirvent settled in Benidorm in 1954 and still scoops on Levante.

Signature innovations

• Arroz con boquerones y espinacas: the town's own rice of anchovies and huerta spinach
• Calle Santo Domingo pintxo bars, the zona de los vascos of the old town
• Benidorm Gastronómico: a calendar of six food weeks run since 2010
• Bollo de Sant Blai: a cornmeal and almond biscuit sold to fund the fiestas
• Jornadas del Atún: a tuna week that revived the almadraba link in 2021