Mesón Marinero: Traditional Cuisine in a Family Corner of Alicante

Eating like at home. A phrase often repeated and synonymous with quality for many restaurants. There's nothing like what takes you back home. A unique feeling that many places try to reproduce so that diners, in their fleeting visit to the tables, can be transported there.

This is precisely what Mesón Marinero seeks, a small corner in the Alicante neighbourhood of San Gabriel. Decorated with nets, helms, and maritime-themed pictures, it stands out as a place of tradition: generous, traditional cuisine, with a respect for the product learned from the founders in 1988: Eduardo Yanci and Alicia Meneses. Now, brothers Javier and Julio Yanci continue their memory with family as their banner and utmost respect for what both did and their way of handling seafood.

It was precisely in memory of their father that they decided to continue the adventure they began after arriving from Cantabria. "When my father passed away and we were going to close the restaurant, we felt his memory would be left incomplete," recalls Javier, the younger brother of Julio (the chef). It was then that both brothers took over from their parents.

Javier, like his father, is the visible face among diners, while in the kitchen is his brother, who learned the trade 37 years ago, despite starting as a waiter, a practice he admits, "I didn't like, I remember going to the kitchen all the time to joke and spend time, and there I stayed."

"Our idea was to serve traditional northern cuisine and the way of cooking fish, in whole pieces," explains the younger Yanci, who above all ensures that the main thing was "not to lose my father's idea and that it was a family place, that we remembered my father and my mother, who no longer works here." They changed the menus for the traditional dishes of before and brought back the urta, the dentex, or the turbot, which is "a recipe from my mother, who fused those Mediterranean flavours with a pine nut and almond sauce."

A menu that instead of changing has embraced the most primitive legacy of their parents, with the way of cooking fish they learned from them. Among everything, they continue to add their touch: "Seven years ago we introduced the urta, a fish halfway between the dentex and the sea bream," explains Julio, while his brother highlights its "flavour due to feeding on crustaceans." Despite not having major novelties, they have implemented dishes with "very good reception" like an octopus salad.

When one goes to Mesón Marinero, memory and family are what prevail. The close treatment, its charm through decoration and family portraits hang from walls where Alicante wine bottles and other wines peek through. But undoubtedly the main protagonist is the fish. Fish served in whole pieces and baked.

"We calculate half a kilo of fish per person, so a two and a half kilo fish, which is my favourite size to work with, would be for five," explains Julio, who also details that "we sometimes work with orders, like with the seafood salad, as the ingredients to make them can cost from 150 to 200 euros."

Baked with oil and potatoes, this is how these delicious and giant fish are served. From urta to dentex, through sea bass or tuna belly, Javier notes that they work with the day-to-day of the fish market, so not everything is always available, although "customers understand perfectly." Therefore, the gastronomic experience also goes through the advice and recommendations of the younger Yanci.

The inn's menu can overwhelm many. Therefore, from TodoAlicante and with the help of the Yanci brothers, we have highlighted some dishes they would recommend. Among the starters, Javier highlights "the prawns, which we cook on the spot and let cool, the wild tuna carpaccio or the onion-stewed squid, which is the tastiest of the hot dishes."

The first course will depend on the diners, although Javier always leans towards his mother's turbot, "but the urta is also very good or the tuna belly, which gives a different touch for diners." For desserts, he chooses the fried milk with nougat, although he also mentions the tiramisu or the cheesecake and their respective pairings for a treat to the palate.