The lonja of Jávea: buying fish at the harbour

At half past three in the afternoon the harbour of Jávea changes character. The terraces are still full, but on the other side of the basin the boats come in and a working day begins that peaks at four. This is where the fish is auctioned that will be on the menu a few hours later at the restaurant where you are sitting tonight. And some of it you can buy yourself, provided you know what time to turn up. Here is how it works.

Why the harbour wakes up at half past three

The fishing fleet of Xàbia works to a rhythm that is the exact opposite of the tourist one. While the beach fills up, the harbour lies quiet. And at the moment everyone heads back to the apartment at the end of the afternoon, the busiest two hours of the day begin here.

Around half past three the boats come in. That is not a fixed time like a train timetable, but it is the rule the rest of the afternoon is built on. The catch goes into crates with ice, gets weighed, sorted by species and size, and moves into the auction hall. Half an hour later everything is ready.

At four the auction starts. By half past four it is over and the door of the fish shop opens. Whatever is still there, you can buy. Whatever is gone is already in a refrigerated van on its way to a restaurant or a wholesaler.

That rhythm explains the single most practical rule in this piece: come at three and there is nothing. Come at seven and the choice is smaller but you are still buying fish landed this afternoon. Come at half past four and you are at the front.

How a Spanish fish auction actually works

A lonja is not a shop but an auction house. The fishermen hand in their catch, the auction sells it on their behalf to registered buyers, and those buyers are wholesalers, fishmongers and restaurants. The proceeds, minus a commission, go back to the boat.

The bidding runs downwards, exactly like the Dutch flower auction: the price starts high and drops until someone presses. Whoever presses first takes the lot, at the price of that moment. It is a system built for speed, and speed is the point, because fresh fish loses value by the hour.

In Xàbia the auction runs from four to half past four. It happens behind closed doors: you cannot sit in as a spectator. That is not unfriendliness but hygiene and trading rules; it is a work floor handling food, not an attraction.

What you can see is the run-up and the aftermath. The unloading at the quay, the crates going in, the vans driving off afterwards. Anyone standing on the quay a quarter of an hour before four sees the most interesting part of the process from the outside.

The cofradia de pescadors, the fishermen's guild that runs the auction, does give guided tours to schools and groups. That is the only way in as an outsider, and it goes through an appointment made in advance, not by walking past.

Where and when you can buy

This is the practical heart of the piece, so the times get their own paragraphs. Xàbia has two places where the public buys fish coming in through the local fleet.

The fish shop at the auction, in the harbour. Open from half past four, right after the auction ends. Until eight in winter, until half past nine in summer. This is where that same afternoon's catch sits.

The municipal market hall, in the old town. There the selling happens in the morning. Handy if you would rather not plan your afternoon around the harbour, and you combine it with the rest of your shopping.

The difference between the two is not quality but timing. In the harbour you buy at the start of the chain, at the hour the fish comes in. In the market hall you buy in the morning, with the comfort of a covered hall and more choice of everything else.

Two things to allow for. The auction sits a few metres from Playa de la Grava, in Duanes de la Mar, and parking there in July and August at the end of the afternoon is a sport. And the times above are the rule, not a guarantee: in a storm the boats stay in, and then there is simply nothing to auction and nothing to sell. The harbour is one of the three centres of the municipality; what there is to see in the other two is in our overview of Jávea.

What comes in, and what the season does to it

The auction figures from Xàbia show what this fleet lives on. Names that keep coming back are the boquerón, called aladroc here, the sardine, the gamba roja and the gamba blanca, the cigala and the quisquilla.

The boquerón is the anchovy: small, silver, and the basis of what Spaniards call pescado azul. In 2019 around 250,000 kilos of it went through the Xàbia auction, and according to the harbour itself that was about half a normal year. That figure says two things at once: that the small blue fish carries the volume, and that the supply can swing hard from year to year.

The shellfish are the other extreme: small quantities, high prices. On 30 December 2019, in the middle of Christmas week and therefore at the most expensive moment of the year, large gamba roja went through the Xàbia auction at 115 euros a kilo, second grade at 80, gamba blanca at 60, large cigala at 70 and quisquilla at 27. Take those as an illustration of the proportions, not as a price list; they are years old and from the most expensive week there is.

What is there on any given day depends on wind, season and where the boats have been. Which makes the most honest preparation this: go and look at what is there and decide on the spot. Anyone arriving with a shopping list naming one specific species is regularly disappointed.

The fleet: about a hundred people

Behind those crates sits a community smaller than you would guess. The cofradia de pescadors of Xàbia counts almost a hundred sea professionals. That includes crews, and for a municipality this size it is a serious number, but it is not an industry.

That also explains why things do not run here the way they do in a big fishing port. A large part of the fleet is small boats working with nets close inshore and returning the same day. Fish that was in the water this morning and on the quay this afternoon has not spent days at sea.

The cofradia does more than auction. It is a guild: it handles the selling, guards traceability and keeps to agreements on sustainability. That last part is not marketing on this coast. Just to the north lies the marine reserve at Cap de Sant Antoni, where fishing has been banned since 1993, and that reserve is part of the reason there is still something to catch nearby. How that works out under water we described in the guide to snorkelling and diving in the Marina Alta.

There is also pescaturismo: going out with a professional fisherman to see how it is done. That runs through the cofradia itself and not through the usual excursion desks. Ask at the harbour; what is on offer changes by season and by boat.

Buying without speaking Spanish

You do not need a vocabulary, you need a finger. Pointing and naming a number works everywhere, and behind the counter are people who deal with foreigners daily.

Five words help anyway. Un kilo and medio kilo for the quantity. Limpio if you want the fish cleaned: scaled, gutted, head off if you want that. A la plancha if you want to know whether a species suits the griddle. And hoy, today, if you want to be sure something is from today.

Have it cleaned. It costs nothing extra, it happens in twenty seconds with a skill you will not match at home, and it saves you a kitchen full of scales. Do say whether you want to keep the head and the bones; for a fish stock they are half the work.

Bring a cool bag. That sounds obvious and is not: most people turn up with a carrier bag and then drive half an hour with fresh fish in a hot car. A simple cool bag with an ice pack is the difference between fish that is still good tomorrow and fish that is not.

And pay cash or ask in advance whether cards work. At a sales point on a quay, a card reader is not a certainty.

What to do with that fish at home

The honest answer is: as little as possible. The reason to buy fish at the auction is that it is fresh, and fresh fish does not need a sauce to cover anything up.

For most white fish the griddle is the answer. Hot plate, some olive oil, salt, a few minutes a side, then lemon. For small blue fish like sardines and anchovies exactly the same applies, but shorter and with a little more salt.

The same principle holds for shellfish. Gamba roja on the plate, with coarse salt, and nothing else. If you want garlic and parsley with it, fine, but do that only after you have tasted once what it is like without.

And then there is rice. On this coast fish is mostly the beginning of a rice dish, not the end point. The head and bones you kept become stock, that stock becomes the flavour of the rice, and the fish itself sometimes does not even go in. That is exactly the idea behind arròs a banda, literally rice aside: the rice cooks in the fish broth and the fish is served separately.

If you would rather have someone else cook, the addresses are in our guide to the restaurants of Jávea and in the piece on the best paella restaurants.

The market hall as an alternative

Not everyone wants to interrupt their afternoon at half past four. For them there is the municipal market hall in the old town, where the selling happens in the morning.

The practical advantage is that you do everything in one go: fish, vegetables, fruit, bread. The drawback is that you stand one link further down the chain and the fish may be from the previous afternoon. That is not a problem, as long as you know that is how it is.

In the hall the same advice applies as in the harbour: look at what is there, ask what came in today and decide on the spot. A good fishmonger will tell you unprompted what is fresh and what you would do better to buy tomorrow.

The market hall is worth a visit in its own right, and it does not stand alone: Xàbia also has its weekly outdoor markets. Which market falls on which day is in our overview of the markets of Jávea.

What it costs and what to look for

On prices we cannot promise much, and that is deliberate. Fish prices move by the day, by the season and by the catch, and a page with amounts on it is wrong within a month.

What can be said is where the extremes sit. Shellfish are expensive and around Christmas extremely so, as the 2019 figures show. Small blue fish is cheap, all year round, and at the same time the best thing this coast has to offer. Anyone who wants to eat well and cheaply buys sardines and anchovies.

Check three things when you buy. The eye should be domed and clear, not sunken and milky. The gills should be red, not brown. And the fish should smell of the sea and of nothing else. These are not insider secrets, it is what every fishmonger does too.

And ask about origin if you want to know. The auction works with traceability, so asking where something comes from is a normal question with a normal answer. Fish from the bay is not by definition better than fish from further away, but if you came to the harbour specially, you usually want the first.

How to plan an afternoon around the lonja

The nicest way to do this is to make half an afternoon of it rather than an errand.

Arrive at Duanes de la Mar around four and park before the quay fills up. Walk the stretch along Playa de la Grava, watch the unloading, and sit on a terrace with a view of the quay for half an hour. At half past four you go into the fish shop, first in line, with your cool bag in the car.

If you want to stretch the day: the harbour sits at the foot of Cap de Sant Antoni, and one of the finest coastal walks in Jávea starts there. That combination works best the other way round, with the walk early in the afternoon and the fish at the end.

In summer you have until half past nine and there is no hurry. In winter the shop closes at eight, and then four is genuinely the moment to leave and not the moment to go and shower first.

And if the wind is up: call or check before you drive. No boats, no auction, no fish. That is the only real uncertainty in this whole plan, and it happens a few times a year.

Frequently asked questions

Can I watch the auction? No. It runs behind closed doors, from four to half past four. What you can watch is the unloading at the quay in the half hour before, and that is freely visible from outside. To actually get in, the only route is a guided tour the cofradia runs for schools and groups, by appointment.

What time should I arrive for the best choice? Half past four, when the shop opens. Everything is still there then. Turn up two hours later and you are still buying fresh fish from that afternoon, but the best pieces have usually gone.

Can I pay by card? Ask in advance. At a sales point on a quay a card reader is not a certainty, and cash always works.

Will the fish be cleaned? Yes, ask for limpio. It costs nothing extra. Say whether you want to keep the head and bones, because that is what you make stock from.

What if the wind is up? Then the boats stay in, there is no auction and there is nothing on the counter. That happens a few times a year. Check before you drive.

Is there a difference between the harbour and the market hall? Not in quality, but in timing. The harbour sells that same day's catch in the afternoon; the market hall sells in the morning and sits one link further down the chain.

About the authorMilo Schuijt

Milo Schuijt is an entrepreneur and DJ on the Costa Blanca. He writes about the places where he lives, works and plays: from beach bars to the housing market.