La Tagliatella

Gate-side pasta fix in NAT terminal

Right inside Alicante’s NAT terminal, La Tagliatella gives you a sit-down Italian option before Schengen departures. It runs through main flight banks, so you’ll usually find it open for both midday departures to Madrid and Barcelona and evening flights to northern Europe. This is one of the few places in the terminal where you can get a plated meal instead of another plastic-wrapped sandwich.

Menu is classic Italian: pizzas around €12–€15, pasta dishes in the €13–€17 range, and shared starters like bruschetta and salads that land near €8–€10. Portions at Spanish airport branches of this chain tend to be generous, so a pizza or pasta is often enough for one hungry traveler without extras. Expect the usual airport markup versus downtown Alicante, but not the eye-watering prices you see at some UK hubs.

Food style matches the high-street La Tagliatella you’ll see in cities like Madrid and Valencia: creamy sauces, lots of cheese, and big bowls of tagliatelle or penne. If you want something heavier before a 2–3 hour hop to Germany or the UK, go for a baked pasta or a pizza with cured meats. Lighter picks exist — salads and tomato-based sauces — but this menu leans more trattoria comfort than health-food café.

Service pace lines up with typical NAT terminal dwell times: you can usually get in and out within 30–45 minutes if the dining room isn’t slammed by a wave of Ryanair and easyJet departures. If your boarding pass shows a bus gate, shave 10 minutes off your sit-down plan, as walking and queuing downstairs at Alicante can take longer than expected.

Tip: order the bill when your main course lands if your flight leaves in under 60 minutes; card machines at Spanish airports occasionally lag, and you don’t want a slow terminal authorization to be the reason you see “gate closed” on the NAT departure screens.