Valencia’s Markets, from the Central to the Grau

Valencia still shops for its dinner in markets. Beyond the great Mercado Central, the neighbourhoods keep their own halls, each with a character of its own: one brutalist and painted in colour, one by the sea, one taken over by a new generation. Here are the ones worth crossing town for.

The Central and Colón

Start with the showpieces. The Mercado Central, an Art Nouveau hall on the Plaza del Mercado, faces the Lonja; look up for the parrot on top of its dome. Opposite, Original CV sells Valencian products to take home.

In the Eixample, the Mercado de Colón is a jewel of Valencian modernism, an open hall of shops, cafés, bars and restaurants; Habitual fills its lower floor, and Piano Bar Lupin keeps it going after dark.

Ruzafa

The Mercado de Ruzafa, by Julio Bellot Senent, opened in 1962, and its graduated colours were added in 2010. More than 160 stalls make it the second-largest market in the Valencian Community after the Central, yet it still feels like a neighbourhood market.

Did you know? Ruzafa takes its name from the Arabic for “garden”: in the 9th century, a pleasure garden was laid out here on the edge of Balansiya.

By the sea

Down by the port, the Mercado del Grau is the city’s oldest, built in 1902 to a modernista design by Rafael Alfaro, rebuilt after the flood of 1957 and fully remodelled in 2023.

In the old fishermen’s quarter, the Mercado del Cabanyal has more than 150 stalls, strong in fish and salted foods. From Thursday to Saturday, 8am to 2pm, farmers sell their own produce along its Martí Grajales front, at the Tira de Contar.

Every neighbourhood keeps its own hall, and each has a character of its own.

Small and new

In El Carmen, Mossén Sorell is a small boutique market with organic produce, an oyster bar and a wine bar, and farmers in the surrounding streets on Saturday mornings. Near the Jardí Botànic, the Rojas Clemente market has passed to a younger generation of stallholders, with street-art murals outside.

Our advice

Our advice: go in the morning, when the stalls are full; most of these markets close by mid-afternoon, and the neighbourhood halls shut on Sundays. Buy from the farmers at the Cabanyal from Thursday to Saturday and around Mossén Sorell on Saturdays, and stop for an esmorzaret at a market bar.