Alicante Food Tours: Compare Routes, Prices and What You Eat

Why an Alicante food tour is worth it on a first night

Alicante eats late. Lunch runs from about 1:30pm to 4pm and dinner from around 8:30pm to 9pm, which is why an evening tour starting at 19:15 or 18:00 slots neatly into the local dinner window rather than fighting it. Arriving in a new city and guessing which bar is good at 9pm is the fastest way to waste a night and a meal.

A guided route also puts the old town in context: the Explanada de España, Carbonell House, the Santa Cruz neighbourhood and the Basílica de Santa María sit within a short walk of the bars on the gourmet route, so you see the centre while you eat through it. If you would rather build your own itinerary, our guide to the things to do in alicante covers where these sights sit and when to visit each.

How the tours differ: bars visited, food volume, group size and price

The classic format is a tapas crawl through the historic centre: two and a half hours, three bars, a guide and three drinks, priced at 75€ per person for groups of three to ten and 85€ per person for a minimum of two. Ali-Oli Tours Alicante describes the food as sufficient to serve as a meal and runs departures at 11:15 or 19:15.

The gourmet option from Local Tours Alicante lasts three hours and costs 80€ per adult, with a reduced 40€ rate for children and no charge for under-sixes. It opens with a shared tabla de embutidos y quesos, then visits four bars for one tapa and one drink each, and finishes with a local dessert. The shorter city walk with a tapa attached is listed at 35€ for two and a half hours, and the private castle variant at 59€ for three hours. That price gap matters: the 35€ walk is a sightseeing tour with food folded in, while the 80€ route is a full dinner spread across four stops plus a dessert.

Option 1: the classic tapas tour through the historic centre

Ali-Oli's tapas tour is built for people who have just landed. It moves through three hand-picked bars in the city centre, away from the main tourist circuit, with a guide on hand to explain what you are eating and to point you towards other places afterwards.

Three drinks per person are included – wine, beer, a soft drink or water – alongside a mix of individual and shared tapas. The Ivan Montadito appears in a client testimonial on Ali-Oli Tours' page as a favourite tapa, but it is a guest's note rather than a guaranteed stop on the route. To eat more of Alicante's tapas under your own steam, our pick of the best tapas in alicante is a useful cross-check.

Option 2: the gourmet dinner route with charcuterie and dessert

This is the most substantial of the Alicante food tours. The evening opens with a shared board of cured meats and cheeses, then works through four bars, each with a chosen tapa and a beer or wine, and closes with a traditional dessert – enough that Local Tours Alicante bills it as a full dinner rather than a tasting.

Groups are capped at six, which is the smallest of the operators listed here and makes for a more conversational evening than a ten-person crawl. Local Tours Alicante runs a fixed 18:00 start and a set route, so late risers and families with small children have less flexibility on timing.

Option 3: history and tapas combined

Local Tours Alicante also runs a two-and-a-half-hour city highlights tour that folds in a tapa and a drink, and a three-hour private castle tour that includes the Santa Bárbara views and local produce. These suit travellers who want the city explained first and an introduction to the food second, rather than a full sit-down dinner.

If the Mercado Central is the reason you want a guided tour, Local Tours Alicante's Alicante Full Experience listing covers the city, the castle, the market and tapas in three and a half hours at 79€ per person. Ask Local Tours Alicante whether the market stop is running on your date, because market activity varies through the week.

Start times: what 11:15, 18:00 and 19:15 mean for your meal

The 11:15 departure on the tapas tour is effectively an early lunch, useful if you plan to spend the afternoon on the beach or in the castle, and it avoids eating heavily before a late Spanish dinner. The 19:15 departure sits at the front of the local dinner window, so you finish at a normal Alicante hour rather than at British-pub closing time.

The gourmet route starts at 18:00, which is early for Spanish dinner but gives a three-hour run that ends around 21:00 – well placed for a drink afterwards. Families and anyone still adjusting to the time difference tend to do better with that earlier slot than with a 21:00 table.

What you actually eat, and how it maps onto Alicantino tapas

Expect the standard bar repertoire rather than restaurant plates: shared boards, individual tapas at each stop, and drinks that are poured alongside rather than ordered separately. The gourmet route names its opener as a tabla de embutidos y quesos, a practical way to start a long evening without filling up on bread.

Alicantino tapas culture rewards grazing rather than one big plate, so a three- or four-stop route is a reasonable primer before you go it alone. Use a tour to learn the vocabulary – tapa, media ración, montadito – and then spend a second evening choosing your own bars with our alicante food guide.

Group size trade-offs: six, ten, or just you

The gourmet route caps at six people and calls itself semi-private, which in practice means one conversation and a guide who can answer individual questions about dishes and wine. Ali-Oli's tour runs for two to ten, so couples pay the higher 85€ rate while a group of three or more drops to 75€ each.

Larger groups are louder and move slower between bars, but they often get better table allocations and a livelier evening. If quiet conversation and detailed food talk matter more than atmosphere, book the smaller group and accept the fixed start time that comes with it.

Drinks: what is included and what you pay extra

Both operators include drinks rather than making them an optional add-on. Ali-Oli covers three drinks per person across the tour, chosen from wine, beer, a refreshment or water, while the gourmet route includes one beer or wine at each of its four stops.

Anything beyond that – a second glass, a spirit, a specialty bottle – is normally settled at the bar, so carry a card and some cash. If wine matters to you, ask at booking which regional wines the route pours; the answer tells you more about the evening than the bar count does.

Booking, meeting points and paying on the day

The gourmet route meets at City Hall Square and asks for a 10€ per-person reservation, with the balance settled on the day by card, cash or PayPal. That structure suits travellers who want to hold a place without paying the full amount weeks in advance.

Ali-Oli takes booking requests through a form on its site and lists a phone number for questions; the tour price is stated per person at the time of booking. The Alicante Tasting Club appears as a listing for a food and tapas tour with a local guide, so book through an operator whose inclusions you can read in advance.

Confirm the meeting point, the start time and what is included in writing before you pay, since these are the details that most often shift between seasons.

What to do before or after the tour in the old town

A morning tour at 11:15 leaves the whole afternoon free for the castle and the Explanada, while an evening tour pairs well with an aperitif in the Santa Cruz neighbourhood an hour beforehand. Both areas are walkable from the centre and from the bars used on these routes.

If the tour leaves you wanting a proper sit-down meal the next day, our shortlist of the best restaurants in alicante covers the centre, the old town and the beachfront. For a cheaper daytime alternative, browse cheap eats alicante and build your own mini crawl around the market.

Travellers continuing along the coast can compare formats: a malaga food tour leans on the Mercado de Atarazanas, while a girona food tour trades the sea for inland cured meats and cheeses.

Verdict: which Alicante food tour to book

For a first night and a proper dinner, book the three-hour gourmet route: four bars, a charcuterie board, dessert and a group of no more than six make it the easiest introduction to Alicantino eating. For a daytime visit or a tighter budget, Ali-Oli's 11:15 tapas tour puts three bars and three drinks into an early lunch slot.

Families with young children should weigh the reduced child rate on the gourmet route against the earlier 18:00 start, which suits bedtime far better than a 19:15 departure. Travellers who mainly want the city explained should take the shorter history-and-tapa walk and spend the saved money on a restaurant dinner of their own choosing.

Plan Your Visit

Pick the tour by meal slot first: 11:15 for lunch, 18:00 or 19:15 for dinner. Then check the food volume and group cap, because those two details decide whether you leave full and whether you can hear the guide.

Reconfirm the price, meeting point and start time with Local Tours Alicante when you book, as these are the details most likely to change between seasons.