Valencia Eats Throwback: the Best Bocadillos in Town at Kiosko La Pérgola
While I’m staying at home due to COVID-19, I’m going back through my archives and writing about places I should have written about long ago. This one comes from Spain; hoping the eatery and staff make it through this crisis.
When my friends ask me where I would go eat, if I could eat anywhere in Valencia, my response usually surprises them. It’s not one of Valencia’s Michelin-rated restaurants, or even one of the places for paella. It’s a humble eatery right next to the Turía park and across from the Jardines Viveros called Kiosko La Pérgola, or just La Pérgola.
There’s some seating indoors, but outdoors they set up some tables as well, which are particularly popular in the summertime. Here are people waiting around to get a seat.
And here’s the “terraza” set up in summertime. You can see it’s quite popular!
La Pérgola is famous for their bocadillos, or sandwiches, and their most famous one is called the “Súper Bonbon.” It’s their Bonbon bocadillo, which includes pork loin a la plancha, cheese, sautéed mushrooms, mayonnaise, and the salsa verde, the green sauce of parsley, and what makes it “Súper” is the addition of french fries! It’s really a “bomb” as they say in Spain!
As decadent as the Súper Bonbon is my favorite bocadillo is the “Full Equip,” which includes longaniza sausage, bacon, sautéed onions, a smear of grated tomatoes, mayonnaise… and potatoes!
Sometimes they really pile on the potatoes. Unlike the Súper Bonbon, these are not french fries, but what they called “patatas a lo pobre,” which are more like home fries.
BUT, my special order which became my regular order in recent years, has been the “Full Equip,” but switching the patatas a lo pobre to patatas fritas, like the “Súper Bonbon.” I like the crispy-crunchy texture more!
This might be even more “bomb”- like than the “Súper Bonbon!”
So the “Full Equip” is what I normally order when I eat with friends in the afternoon or evening. By the way, both the that and the “Súper Bonbon” are only 5€!
I also visited La Pérgola in the mornings, perhaps after Crossfit or a doctor’s appointment. On these occasions, I’d get the tortilla bocadillo (only 3€!). Their tortillas are out of this world. Besides the regular potato one, they rotate what they have according to vegetables in season, like eggplant and young garlic. Since I love so many of their tortillas, I would ask for half-and-half orders, to get two different flavors in one. This one below had green garlic on the left, and a super decadent potato and sobrasada on the right (kind of like loose chorizo spread) that was one of my favorites.
The one below had the green garlic tortilla in front, and a super-luscious eggplant tortilla in the back. I tried many times to recreate the eggplant in the silky way that they prepare it - braising in oil, frying, etc. etc. - but I have never been able to replicate their delectable results!
Sometimes they really interpret the half-and-half order as two half bocadillos and serve it on two plates. The one in the back is an artichoke tortilla; again, they somehow manage to make the artichoke silky and soft, but not limp at the same time. I need to learn their secret!
I also ordered the tortilla bocadillo to go a lot - to eat in the office as a morning snack or to bring onto the airplane. Once, I found that they prepared the half-and-half bocadillo with the two tortillas in thin strips adjacent to one another! This really gave two tastes in one bite! (I prefer it when the dividing line is along the short axis, but I appreciate the care that went into assembling this…)
You can also order just a slice of tortilla. I must have ordered this one when I was trying not to eat so much bread, but consumed in this way, their basic potato tortilla isn’t actually one of my top favorites (that would be Casa Dani in Madrid). It’s perhaps just a bit drier than I prefer.
Besides bocadillos, La Pérgola has a bunch of other dishes to offer. One that my friends and I always order is their ensaladilla rusa, or “Russian salad,” aka a kind of mayonnaise-y potato and tuna salad. They’re quite generous with the customary breadsticks!
This is their half-ration of ensaladilla rusa. Smaller, fewer sticks.
They also do a great sepia a la plancha (griddled cuttlefish), topped with that salsa verde. Their griddle gives a nice sear.
They also do mushrooms in the same way.
At lunchtime, they also serve plates with similar ingredients to what they put in their bocadillos. Here are some albondigas (meatballs). They were fine, but lacked the magic of one of their special bocadillos.
Finally, they are one of the few places I know that actually serves fresh orange juice. I know, fresh orange juice should be much more common in Valencia, land of oranges, but somehow it’s not. So I often indulged at La Pérgola. They serve their fresh orange juice with a packet of sugar on the side, which I’m told is quite customary!
So that’s La Pérgola. It became an annual summer tradition with a group of friends to eat their, and was always my choice of where to go whenever people asked me to choose for a special treat. The very casual service, and masterful execution and combination of simple ingredients always brought a smile to my face and happiness to my belly.
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Kiosko La Pérgola
Paseo de la Alameda, 1
46010 Valencia Spain
