Dénia bids farewell to the most creative and participatory 2025 edition of its D*na Festival.
Amid freshly baked cakes, rice dishes, salted meats, sweets, wines, citrus fruits, and the Mediterranean sea breeze, the eighth edition of the D*na Festival closed today after a weekend in which Dénia established itself as the capital of Mediterranean cuisine and a benchmark for international culinary creativity. Filling the event to capacity, thousands of visitors strolled along the Paseo de la Marineta Cassiana, transformed into a gastronomic art gallery open to the public, where tradition, innovation, and local culture went hand in hand to celebrate Dénia's tenth anniversary as a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy.
The festival left behind iconic images such as the more than 700-meter-long table facing the Mediterranean, a symbol of the collective spirit that defines D*na. For two days, the public enjoyed cooking demonstrations, workshops, and a flavor market showcasing the best of the Marina Alta's culinary and culinary scene.
The Escenario del Mar enjoyed a vibrant Saturday afternoon with Pablo Montoro and Borja Susilla, who showcased local produce and contemporary Mediterranean cuisine. Following them, television personality Alberto Chicote surprised everyone by bringing back traditional iron griddles, defending the essence of the product against excessive technology. “I seek to make dishes that endure in the memory, with few ingredients and preparations,” he explained while live-cooking red shrimp, Iberian pork cannelloni, and a cheesecake on a griddle at 300 degrees, achieving a quick and respectful cooking experience, showcasing the flavors and textures of the ingredients. “Today we cook with sensitivity, care, and expertise, not with buttons.”
Chicote's talk was followed by the elegance of Frenchman Amaury Bouhours (Le Meurice Alain Ducasse, Paris) and the grand finale of Jordi Roca. All it took was a whisper of “good night, Denia” to win over the audience. An audience packed the grand Stage of the Sea and beyond to attend a privileged masterclass from the man considered one of the world's finest pastry chefs. The younger of the Roca brothers exuded charisma and brilliance on stage and shared with the privileged audience the secrets behind some of the most artistic desserts served at his renowned restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca. The pastry chef expressed pride in participating in this unique festival. "What Quique Dacosta is doing here, bringing local gastronomy to the entire country, is a beautiful thing, and it's a real luxury to be able to be part of it," he noted.
The culinary greats also got down to business, sharing their experience and creativity with the audience, alongside leading chefs and producers of regional cuisine, in the numerous workshops scheduled over the two days of the festival, focusing on local products, traditional techniques, and new culinary trends. Visitors were able to make brines and pickles, prepare rice dishes, make homemade ice cream, bake traditional cocas, and experiment with gluten-free recipes, in addition to learning about wines, oils, and cocktails. In parallel, the Creative Cities Stage offered an international tour: from Lebanon, Italy, Mexico, and Japan, to Ibiza as a special guest, sharing techniques, products, and visions of the future of cuisine.
The festival maintained its creative pace today, Sunday, with a day that combined tradition, sustainability, and innovation. Gonzalo Silla and Giuseppe Vono explored the most contemporary Valencian cuisine, followed by Alejandra Herrador, who championed local produce from Castellón, and Luis Valls (El Poblet, Valencia) and Marcos Morán (Casa Gerardo, Asturias), who delved into the history and sustainability of Mediterranean and Asturian recipes. Morán showed how vegetables are processed at his Michelin-starred restaurant in Prendes, "bringing the world of vegetables closer to the consumer of a stew, using working techniques that make less popular vegetables, such as lettuce, endives, and cabbage, more palatable, in different contrasts."
The festival culminated with Quique Dacosta and Carolina Álvarez, who offered a gastronomic spectacle where landscape, technique, and emotion intertwined to the delight of a devoted audience. This year, D*na has championed gastronomy as the eighth art, a creative language that unites disciplines and connects territories.
Dacosta summed up the spirit of this edition, stating: “Gastronomy is a living art that is constructed, shared, and connects us with our history and our surroundings. And that is the spirit of D*na, which once again has become the epicenter of gastronomy. A journey that many colleagues generously join each year to be close to our people. I am very grateful to all of them, and of course to the organization, which works tirelessly each year to ensure that thousands of people can enjoy gastronomy.” The chef expressed his satisfaction with the success of this eighth edition, which, once again, exceeded expectations in terms of attendance and public participation. In his words, the festival demonstrates "the support that the people of the Valencian Community have given to D*na, and also the responsibility to lead the projection of the image of this land, gastronomically speaking, from a humanist perspective, which represents us all."
With this farewell, the D*na Festival 2025 reaffirms its status as a major Mediterranean gathering, where Dénia shows the world that its food, its traditions, and its creativity are a shared heritage.
D*na Festival
D*na Festival is organized by the Dénia Creative City of Gastronomy Foundation (composed of Dénia City Council, CEDMA, AEHTMA, and Baleària), in collaboration with Dénia City Council, Turisme Comunitat Valenciana, the Costa Blanca Provincial Tourism Board as an institutional collaborator, and with three-Michelin-star chef Quique Dacosta as gastronomic curator. The eighth edition of this festival consolidates its position as one of the major gastronomic events in our country and positions the city of Dénia—which was named a Creative City of Gastronomy by UNESCO in 2015—as the gastronomic capital of the Mediterranean. www.dnafestivaldenia.com.