Alexander Fleming allegedly once declared: “If penicillin can cure those that are ill, Spanish sherry can bring the dead back to life.” Swaying down Jerez’s maze of cobbled streets, vaguely high on its favourite tipple, I think he might have been on to something.
Jerez de la Frontera – to give it the full, muscular title – is the place where it all begins: sherry Ground Zero. The name itself is a linguistic fossil, taken from the Moorish “sherish”, which the English tongue-mangled into “sherry”. For me, the very word conjures up the bourgeois pretensions of the 1970s: Coronation Street’s Emily Bishop, gingerly ordering a small schooner in the Rovers Return. Something for the middle-class lady: sweet, discreet and straight to your feet.
But how wrong I am. There’s nothing fussy or matronly about the alcoholic wonder that’s produced here, and everything it touches turns to gold. Including its food.
Fittingly, Jerez has been named Spain’s Capital of Gastronomy in 2026, beating rival bids from Burgos, Badajoz and Cáceres – no small feat in a country that treats its regional food cultures like points of national honour. This is a proud corner of Spain, where sustenance and passion are high on the menu of life.
It starts at a tabanco. These precise bars, unique to Jerez, are the city’s secular chapels: small, ancient hubs serving sherry from the barrel and resolutely dispensing with pretension. At Tabanco San Pablo, I’m perched among hungry families under curling bullfighting posters, impressed by their appetite for life. I eat plates of tortillitas de camarones , translucently crisp shrimp fritters, which are the city's great democratic snack.
Around the corner, Tabanco El Pasaje rattles with the staccato rhythm of flamenco, stamping its feet three times nightly in joyous, celebratory abandon. Jerez is the cradle of bulerías, the most rhythmically urgent of flamenco's forms and this is the ultimate spot to get lost in its magic. Actress Eva Longoria was here in 2024, filming the documentary series Secrets of Spain. I order their famous Pedro Ximénez-infused artichokes, sink a couple of palo cortados and let the evening make its presence felt.
This is the heart of the old town, where ancient perimeter walls carve through the modern city with historic indifference, slicing into boutiques, interrupting pavements, inserting themselves into the back rooms of shops. I trace the route to the Mercado Central de Abastos, which is an education in culinary culture: think estuary fish, grass-fed beef and vegetables popping with primary colour.
At La Carboná, a slick restaurant that was once a bodega, the cooking is indulgent and on-point. I eat uncannily sweet sea bass, pigeon pate, buttery rice with crisp dusted prawns. Sherry, I’m told, isn’t just a pairing suggestion, it’s near enough a requirement. “All the elements of its production go into the cooking,” explains genial head chef, Javi Muñoz Soto. “The wine is in everything we do.”
Raising the bar to even greater heights, Michelin-starred Mantua pushes this concept to the max. Chef Israel Ramos treats sherry – mainly fino and oloroso – as building blocks rather than garnish. “Our roots are set in tradition”, he tells me quietly, “but we marry that with modernity. It’s old and new.” A 16-course tasting menu ensues, admirable in both taste and execution.
Read more: The best hotels in Lanzarote
No visit to Jerez is complete without tasting your way to the source of its fame. I’m led through the ageing warehouse, at Fundador, and shown small batch sherry production at the more intimate Bodegas Tradicion.
The latter has its own private art gallery, where a Velázquez and a Goya hang quietly, as though this was entirely normal. Nobody warned me of such treasures, characteristic of a city which conceals its riches without fuss or fanfare.
There is one portrait that stays with me long after I first spot it. El Guardacantón by José Jiménez Aranda, painted in 1878, depicts a swaggering Andalusian bandit leaning against a street corner with magnificent, insolent ease. He’s Oliver Reed dressed by Vivienne Westwood, and worthy of your attention.
You’ll find him reproduced on restaurant walls, hotel lobbies, wine labels and tabanco facades. For me, he’s the city's unofficial mascot, a figure who, like Jerez itself, is not so much seeking your approval as inviting you to explore what the place has to offer.
Read more: The best luxury hotels in Seville
The city’s wider life carries the same intensity. The Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art stages classical dressage performances that are a distillation of this dramatic region. Can there be anything more Spanish than the sight of a white stallion twisting and writhing to Castilian guitar?
At nearby El Molino, Manolo Moreno presides over a modest bar and restaurant that prides itself on artfully updated classics. On a terrace frequented by street cleaners and elegant senoras, Russian salad dotted with shrimp feels like the perfect mid-morning snack. I’m also presented with the house montadito, a small sandwich folded around velvety pork loin, lined by salsa laced with sweet amontillado. Of everything I’ve consumed so far, this humble tapa stays with me the longest.
Ultimately, Jerez glints rather than dazzles. Gritty, affordable and deeply rooted in working class traditions, it’s not San Sebastian – but isn’t competing. A year of festivals, tastings and sherry genuflection lies ahead.
How to do it
Jet2 flies direct from London Stansted to Jerez de la Frontera, with a flight time of around two hours and 45 minutes. The service operates seasonally, with weekly Saturday departures. Prices start at around £120 per person.
Alternatively, several airlines including Iberia, Vueling and British Airways operate flights from London Heathrow and Gatwick to Seville, from where Jerez is easily reached by train. The journey takes around one hour and trains run regularly throughout the day. Check timetables and book rail tickets on the Renfe website.
Where to stay
La Gitanilla is a characterful boutique bed and breakfast in a lovingly restored Andalusian townhouse, just minutes from the Lola Flores Cultural Centre. Guests can enjoy cathedral views from the rooftop terrace. Rooms start from around £70 per night.
Paul was a guest of the Spanish Tourist Office and Turismo Cadiz
South Tyrol has some of Italy’s most exciting food spots
How Mount Etna has turned Sicily into one of Italy’s best destinations for foodies
Magaluf is quietly becoming Spain’s most cultural getaway
How some of Athens’s most captivating ancient sites hide in plain sight
A former military fort is now one of Mallorca’s most stylish five-star hotels
This down-to-earth European city should be your next solo travel trip
