On the last weekend of September, more than 800 metres of Dénia’s seafront will become a long open-air table. Chefs will cook against the Mediterranean backdrop, local restaurants will serve dishes inspired by the Marina Alta, producers will bring regional food and drink, and thousands of visitors will move between tastings, workshops and live demonstrations.
D*na Festival returns to Dénia, on Spain’s Costa Blanca, on 26–27 September 2026 for its ninth edition. Admission is free, with no ticket required.
Held along the Marineta Cassiana promenade and curated by three-Michelin-starred chef Quique Dacosta, D*na brings together contemporary gastronomy and the food culture of the region where it takes place. Producers, fishermen, farmers, artisans, restaurateurs and chefs all become part of the festival.
This year, however, D*na is adding something else to the table: books.
An Open Library by the Sea
The ninth edition revolves around gastronomy as a space for shared knowledge.
For centuries, recipes, techniques and professional knowledge could remain closely guarded. Contemporary food culture works very differently: chefs publish their ideas, recipes travel between kitchens and countries, traditions are documented, and knowledge that once belonged to a relatively small professional circle can reach a much wider audience.
D*na 2026 explores that transformation and the role books have played in it.
The festival imagines itself as an open library by the sea, with its pages written by chefs, producers, publishers and booksellers and its story rooted in the produce and culinary traditions of the Marina Alta.
For Quique Dacosta, culinary curator of D*na since its first edition, cooking is not simply about creating dishes. It is also about telling stories and passing knowledge from one person and one generation to another.
The book theme will also appear physically along the festival route. Aprosdeco will retrace the history of D*na through nine installations — one for each edition — conceived as chapters of the same continuing story. The journey begins with Where It All Began and reaches Open Book, the theme of 2026.
From Ferran Adrià to a New Generation of Chefs
The theme of sharing culinary knowledge is reflected in the people coming to Dénia this year.
Among the headline participants is Ferran Adrià, whose influence extends beyond the culinary revolution associated with elBulli. His work has also approached cuisine as knowledge — something to be researched, documented and shared — making his participation particularly relevant to this year’s theme.
He will be joined by established names including Paco Roncero, Susi Díaz and Óscar Molina, alongside Portuguese chef David F. Jesus and chefs representing Dénia and the surrounding Alicante region.
D*na also looks beyond the traditional restaurant kitchen. Paola Freire, creator of Foodtropia, and Anna Terrés, behind Anna Recetas Fáciles, have built large digital communities around cooking and recipes, representing another way culinary knowledge now reaches new audiences.
They join Quique Dacosta, D*na’s culinary curator since its first edition, bringing different generations and different ways of communicating about food together around the central idea of the 2026 festival: sharing what we know.
An 800-Metre Table Along the Mediterranean
For all the discussion of books and knowledge, D*na is still very much a festival to eat your way through.
Its main setting is Marineta Cassiana, Dénia’s seafront promenade, where the festival stretches for more than 800 metres beside the Mediterranean. Over two days, this long waterfront becomes a meeting place for chefs, producers, restaurants and visitors.
At the Sea Stage, chefs take part in talks and live cooking demonstrations with the Mediterranean behind them.
Nearby, the Aqualia Space brings visitors closer to ingredients and techniques through workshops, while the Cooking Space hosts activities for adults and families. The programme ranges from gluten-free pasta and traditional charcuterie to aromatic herbs, honey and ice cream.
There is also a programme devoted to what goes into the glass.
At Liquid Universe, wine, extra virgin olive oil, vermouth, coffee, horchata and cocktails become the focus of tastings, workshops and encounters with people who work with these products.
Admission to the festival itself is free and no ticket is required. Food and tastings are purchased separately from individual stalls, with tapas generally priced between €3 and €7.
Meet the People Behind the Produce
One of the defining features of D*na is that local produce is not simply presented after it reaches the restaurant kitchen. The people responsible for producing it are part of the festival too.
Farmers, fishermen, winemakers, cheesemakers, bakers and producers of traditional salted and cured foods meet visitors along the promenade, offering a chance to discover — and buy — products directly from the people behind them.
Olive oils, honey, preserves, cured meats, wines and traditional sweets are among the products represented at the festival. D*na says its previous editions have attracted more than 30,000 visitors a year.
For 2026, the waterfront will include 24 producer and artisan stalls, 20 restaurant stalls and three rice stalls.
There is an international guest as well: Matosinhos in Portugal, another member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network for Gastronomy.
Local restaurants are an important part of the experience. Establishments from across the Marina Alta prepare dishes using ingredients connected with the region and serve them from tasting stalls along Marineta Cassiana.
The Festival Continues in Dénia's Restaurants
D*na does not end at the edge of the promenade.
From 24 to 27 September, participating restaurants around the city will take part in D*na Restaurant, offering special menus of at least three courses.
It gives visitors another way to experience the festival — and effectively extends it beyond the two main days on the waterfront. A day of tastings and demonstrations at Marineta Cassiana can continue with dinner elsewhere in Dénia, using the city's restaurants as another route into the local food culture.
Why Dénia?
D*na is closely tied to the place where it takes place. The Mediterranean, fishing and the agricultural landscape of the Marina Alta all shape Dénia’s culinary identity, from the Dénia red prawn and rice dishes to traditional salted fish, local wines and olive oils.
In 2015, Dénia became a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, recognising the role of food as part of the region’s cultural heritage and local development.
Beyond the festival, Dénia Castle, the historic centre, fishing port and more than 20 kilometres of beaches and coves make it easy to turn a visit to D*na into a weekend on the Mediterranean coast.
Since its first edition in 2017, D*na has explored different parts of this relationship between food and place. In 2026, the focus turns to knowledge — how gastronomy is recorded, shared and passed on.
For one September weekend, those stories return to the waterfront — inviting visitors not only to taste them, but to read their next chapter.
D*na Festival 2026: Practical Information
Dates: 26–27 September 2026
Saturday: 11:00–23:00
Sunday: 11:00–20:30
Location: Paseo de la Marineta Cassiana – Marge Roig, Dénia, Alicante, Spain
Admission: Free — no ticket is required
Tastings: Purchased separately at individual stalls; tapas generally cost €3–€7
Culinary curator: Quique Dacosta
The full daily programme is available on the official D*na Festival website.
