Catral Tapas Route 2025

This year the Catral Tapas Route is a one day event, 18th October 2025, running from 11am until 16.30. Crazy I know, but hey ho.

I want to add this in bold, so people understand my comments here, without getting too arsey, especially those who have only ever lived in one town or autonomous community. In our time here, we have lived in 5 different towns, across 3 different autonomous communities of Spain. We are not one hit wonders, who moved here into a town or urb and never moved since.

We used to live down in Andalusia in the Granada province and there you get a good tapas free with every beer, wine or soft drink, 365 days of the year. So we never had these events down there, as we had no need for them. I feel the need to highlight this, as my comment about an establishment on the recent Benijofar tapas trail, which charged an additional euro for a soft drink and the bottle of water handed out was a small 33cl size, just reeked of profiteering.

Anyway, as we pop into Catral each week, we regularly visit most of the bars and restaurants in town, so this time we decided we’d be selective as to which we visited based on a couple of criteria. The first was when we were last there to eat, the second, which tied in with this was the tapas dish on offer.

This went out of the door from the get go, regarding what tapas was on offer. This year there was no voting for the best tapas/establishment, no collecting stamps; instead it was just a plain and simple flyer which showed who was taking part.

Restaurante Foc i Terra

We chose here to start, as nobody knew where it was. A recce the day before by friends revealed it is the bar at the swimming pool in town.
The tapas was a small but tasteful tortilla, topped off with a small piece of pancetta, all of which was very tasty. I paid the 7.00€ for us both and was surprised to get handed back 3.20€ in change.

We have no idea as to why, they had no need to do this, but it was a welcome gesture, all the same. Yes the tapas was small, so we think they basically just charged for the drinks and didn’t want to be seen as profiteering from the event. Here it was a small bottle of Aguila and Soph asked for a Coke Zero and it was a full 330ml can.

Restaurante Venecia

This is a place we have eaten at many times and enjoy the food, but the tapas today was very good. It was a small potato base with a very nice, salsa type topping and dressing, with onions, pomegranate, avocado and more.

Again I had a beer, Soph asked for a Coke Zero and this was a large bottle, at no extra cost!

Pizzeria Ovi

I had eaten here with a group of guys a couple of weeks previously, had a pizza and tapas and really liked it. Back then, I’d said to Soph we’d add this to our list of places to eat out at.
Today there was a selection of tapas to choose from, we had the lomo and also the pork which came with a padron pepper. Both tapa were tasty, good traditional Spanish tapa and reconfirmed that this is somewhere we need to come back to for a meal.

Restaurante Enreo

This is a really nice place for food, tucked away off the main street. We have always enjoyed the food here and the tapas today was just as good. I’d seen someone on the next table with a Bomba, so I said to Soph to order me one of those as my tapas dish. I had a beer for my drink, Soph wanted something other than Coke, so she had a water. Soph really loved the brioche with the rocket and pulled pork. the combination of flavours worked perfectly and it was definitely elevated from the normal tapa offering.

Here you could order tapas without a drink, so we had 2 more dishes, 1 each to try. The hashbrown with a tomato marmalade was good but would have been even better if it was hot. The chorizo cooked in cider is a real classic and makes a great combination with the really fresh and soft bread.

Cervecería Sánchez

Here the madness started, we realised as we walked around the corner just how busy this place is. The road there is blocked off, but all the seats were taken, there were a lot of people standing with their drinks. As usual, it was very busy inside, there were many different tapas dishes to choose. Soph got us both a drink and chose three tapas, which came to 9€.

My personal favourite here was the morcilla with the egg on top. Again a real classic Spanish tapa but done well.

Dog & Firkin

This was our next visit, there was just one tapas dish on offer, a cheese topped mushroom. I ordered at the bar, asked for a beer and a Coke Zero, to be advised the soft drinks were not included but for an extra 50c we could have one. This was the small sized bottle too. The beer here was Mahou, so a cheaper option ( 24 bottles retail for 11,05 € at Carrefour).

Service was friendly, but only having beer or wine available as part of the tapas route, really doesn’t help anyone driving. Sadly, this was a non meat dish, so it was probably one of the cheapest ones to make today, which is back to that showcase your food, don’t just look at this as another profit maker.

We were about to head off to Los Verdes, but we were advised that they were only doing beer there. Soft drinks, wine or water were not included and were all being charged extra for.

Final Thoughts On This Years Catral Tapas Route

This Catral Tapas Route was ‘different’ this year. I’m not sure what happened to the organisation, not sure why it was made into a single day event, not sure why there was no collecting stamps etc.
I heard someone say the town hall was wasting too much money on ” damn roundabout decorations” and this was one possible reason. In one of the bars today, I heard two different people commenting as to why there was no train.

I was actually in two minds about doing this event this year. Thankfully, the price has not directly increased and I have to say there were more establishments taking part, with several now offering a choice of different tapas dishes.

Retail price of 3,35 € for 6 of the small bottles of El Aguila at Carrefour, so 60c each means you have 2.90€ for a good tapas, staff, utilities etc.
I’ve heard people argue that these events don’t generate profit for the establishments taking part, and my reply to that is ‘bollocks’. The profit on the day maybe minimal, however when you get new people returning to eat, then you recoup this down the line!

If you are a genuinely busy, sold out restaurant, then stick to that and don’t take part. If you’re looking to attract new customers, take a hit on the profit margin and showcase how good your food (and service) actually is.

We would have done more establishments if this was a two day event ideally, or had run on longer than till 16.30 in the afternoon. Even if the bars and restaurants had an hour break to replenish, then opened again at 18.00 until 23.00, for example. The Catral Tapas Route this year just didn’t seem to have the organisation behind it that previous years have had.

Will we go next year? We’ll wait and see.