Who is Quique Dacosta, Dénia's three-Michelin-star chef?

Born in 1972 in Jarandilla de la Vera (Cáceres, Extremadura), Quique Dacosta arrived in Dénia at the age of 14 with his mother. He took his first steps in the kitchen there as a dishwasher in an Italian restaurant, before joining chef Tomás Arribas's team at the El Poblet restaurant in Dénia in 1989.

His rise was unbroken: executive chef in 1992, partner in 1996, then sole owner in 2009, the year the restaurant was renamed Quique Dacosta Restaurante. On the awards front, the house earned its first Michelin star in 2003, its second in 2006 and its third in 2012, a rank it has held every year since, up to the 2026 edition of the guide.

The chef lays claim to a deeply personal cuisine. "Cooking is my way of expressing myself, and I always say that you come here to live an experience that gets under your skin," he said in an interview with Telecinco on 25 May 2024.

Recent news confirms his stature: on 25 November 2025, at the Michelin Guide Spain-Portugal gala in Málaga, he received the Michelin Chef Mentor Award 2026 while his Dénia restaurant kept its three stars. On 28 January 2026 he opened Flores Raras in Valencia, an evolution of his former El Poblet (two stars), whose kitchen is now led by Carolina Álvarez, a chef for six years in Dénia.

Photo credit: PrensaQDR (the restaurant’s press office), via Wikimedia contributor MikelPonce, CC BY-SA 3.0 licence, Wikimedia Commons.

This portrait was prepared with AI assistance, then cross-checked, verified and edited by our editorial team, who take full editorial responsibility for it. Facts verified on 4 August 2026.