Habitual rounded off a good selection of restaurants in Valencia. With the exception of one dish, it easily met our expectations.

Habitual is located in the Mercado de Colón, a 100-year old market building that has been turned into a lovely space full of bars and restaurants. Before dinner, we sat in a bar admiring the impressive architecture and elegant renovation.

Habitual is below ground and is one of the most stylised and stylish restaurant spaces we have encountered. It is a big space, completely decked out in pale wood with thousands of circular holes. In some places, the holes give a view into the kitchen, in other places images are formed – pegs portray a fish while, strangely but sticking to a theme, small Le Crueset pans pick out a more random design. Le Creuset pops up throughout: the aesthetic would seem to demand white crockery and fine glassware, but instead Le Creuset is used for almost everything – even our water was served in orange Le Cresuet mugs. The effect is a splash of colour and sharp contrasts of style. The intention, we assumed, was to suggest a blend of contemporary and traditional.

The restaurant is Richard Camarena’s second restaurant – he has an eponymous Michelin-starred establishment elsewhere in Valencia, as well as other outlets, including a bar in the Central Market where we had stopped for coffee and tea the previous day.

Habitual makes a big thing about serving the flavours of the Mediterranean in re-imagined ways and using local ingredients. On the whole, it succeeded in this.

We opted for a €30 menu that included all four starters listed – something we hadn’t realised when trying to make our menu choices. To drink, we took our waiter’s recommendation – 2010 Cellar de Roure Maderusa from Valencia. The recommendation was a good one: it was interesting, supple and versatile with food and the few years’ age had mellowed it – the best of the Valencian reds we drank during our stay.

Three of the starters were very good and creative. Marinated Anchovies with Olives, Feta and Dill was a fresh way to start and next came a ‘Pizza Margherita’ Roasted Vegetable Salad. This was a lot of fun: a neat circle of roasted vegetables forming the ‘pizza’ base, with a ‘Margherita’ topping of mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and tiny croutons. It was a lovely mix of flavours, and was indeed something like a deconstructed pizza.

The starters were pretty sizeable, and this continued with Smoked Aubergine with Hollandaise and Pine Nuts. The smokiness of the aubergine combined well with the hollandaise, which was whipped and baked in such a way that the whole took on a soufflé-like taste and texture

We could easily have stopped there. The starters had more than done their job. But Deep Fried Pizza ‘Diabla’ was still to come. This had intrigued us, and we had imagined small tastes of something pizza-like, perhaps deconstructed. But no. It was a whole deep fried pizza with mozzarella and topped with copious pancetta matchsticks. This just didn’t work. We didn’t see the point of it, and it didn’t seem to match the ambition of showing off the flavours of the Med. Worse, it was so filling that we lost the appetite for our main course. After three such good dishes, this seemed such an unnecessary disappointment.

It was a shame we were already so full because our main course was excellent – we both chose the Shoulder of Ibérico. It was unusual to have this cut served medium-rare, the recommendation, but it worked beautifully, full of rich Ibérico flavours but with a texture that was more like beef. It was simply presented with some kale, lightly crisped, which contrasted well with the softness of the pork. Simple and delicious.

Dessert was creamed rice with milk, strawberry jelly and biscuit crumble – served in a kilner jar. The jelly included jellified strawberries and there was a fabulous contrast between this, the rice and the generous crumble topping. Our only slight criticism was a sprinkling of mint, which didn’t seem necessary and left a flavour that lingered beyond the primary flavours of the dish.

It truly was a shame about the final starter, which left us feeling heavy and over-fed. Other than that one duff note, we thoroughly enjoyed Habitual and, like all our Valencia choices, we would happily go again and happily recommend it. A word also for the extremely friendly and helpful staff, who added to the experience.