International Valencian Paella Contest in Sueca

Sueca sits in the Ribera Baixa, between the rice fields of the Albufera and the sea, about 35 km south of València. In other words, the contest happens exactly where the rice is grown. It brings together cooks competing for first place and is regarded as the most important competition in the world devoted to Valencian paella, with the stated aim of defending the traditional recipe and local produce.

What you actually see

A cooking competition is not a restaurant. What is on show is teams cooking, a jury working seriously, and a town turned out around it. If you are coming to eat paella, check the official page first for what is arranged for the public — timings, access and whether portions are served vary from edition to edition, and none of that is in the listing, so we are not going to invent it.

What Valencian paella actually is

Worth knowing before you watch people argue about it: the traditional Valencian recipe is chicken and rabbit with flat green beans and garrofó butter beans, tomato, olive oil, saffron and short-grain rice, cooked over wood in a wide shallow pan. No chorizo, no onion, no seafood — that is a different dish. It is a lunch, eaten in the middle of the day, never at night. More on the city version in where to eat the best paella.

Getting to Sueca and what else is nearby

The Cercanías commuter train, line C-1 from València Nord towards Gandia, stops at Sueca — the simplest way to come and go without driving or parking. Reaching the villages without a car covers the wider network. Just outside town, la Muntanyeta dels Sants is a low hill that rises over the paddies and explains the whole landscape in one look. North of here is El Palmar, inside the Albufera; south, Cullera beach.