Dinner at Casa Agara isn't a hotel buffet with one sad meat-free tray at the end. It's a home-cooked meal, made in a house kitchen, for a houseful of guests — and a fair bit of it starts life in the garden outside. That changes what's possible for vegetarians and vegans, mostly for the better. But there's an honest line between "flexible" and "we can cater any diet blind on the night", and this post walks right up to it.

What is the kitchen actually like?

Small, and home-cooked — that's the key fact. This isn't an institutional kitchen turning out 200 identical covers; it's María and the team cooking one proper dinner each evening for the house, much of it built around vegetables grown a few steps away in the garden. A cook working at that scale can adapt in a way a mass caterer simply can't — there's no central production line to override, just a person deciding what to put on the stove that day. Half board means breakfast and dinner are both taken care of every day, and the house wine, beer and spirits come with it. Lunch usually isn't included, and that's deliberate — you're generally out on a walk or a beach by then, free to please yourself.

Is vegetarian straightforward here?

In all likelihood, yes — a kitchen already cooking with its own garden veg is halfway there, and vegetables are the part of dinner they take most pride in. Practically, that tends to mean things like a proper vegetable stew, a garden salad, a good tortilla, beans cooked slowly — the kind of food a home cook reaches for when vegetables are the main event rather than an afterthought, not one sad meat-free plate bolted onto everyone else's menu. But "in all likelihood" isn't the same as a cast-iron promise from someone who's never met you, so the honest instruction is the same as for everyone: tell them when you book. A quick heads-up that you're vegetarian gives María time to plan the week's dinners properly around it, rather than improvising on your first night.

Can they do vegan?

Vegan is genuinely doable, but it needs a bit more care and more notice. Leaving the meat off a plate is the easy part. The harder part is butter, cream, cheese and sometimes honey — the things that hide inside a sauce or a baked dish without announcing themselves, and that a kitchen only thinks to swap out if it knows in advance. A home kitchen can absolutely work around all of that, given the notice. Turning up and announcing it at the table on night one is the way to end up with a plate of plain vegetables and nothing else. Give Rob and María fair warning and let them tell you honestly how they'll handle the week. If it's a whole-house group booking, even easier: a single menu for the week can be planned around the group from the start.

What about coeliac, allergies or a medical diet?

Here I'm going to be careful rather than reassuring, because that's the responsible thing. A home kitchen is not a certified allergen-controlled environment, and I'm not going to pretend it is or invent guarantees about cross-contamination that I can't stand behind. This isn't us being cagey for the sake of it — a beautiful old stone house with a family kitchen is a wonderful place to eat, but it wasn't built or certified as a clinical environment, and pretending otherwise would help nobody. If your dietary need is medical — coeliac disease, a serious allergy, anything where a mistake matters to your health — the only honest answer is to talk to Rob and María directly before you book, lay out exactly what you need, and let them tell you plainly what they can and can't guarantee for your situation. That's not a brush-off. A place that promises to handle a severe allergy sight unseen is the one to worry about; a place that wants the details first is the one taking you seriously.

Tell them before you book — not on the first night

The pattern here is simple and it's the same one that runs through everything at the house: say what you need early, and you'll almost always be looked after well; leave it as a surprise, and you're relying on luck. Email hello@agara.es or message WhatsApp (+34 699 489 998) with your diet spelled out — vegetarian, vegan, or something stricter — and get a real answer for your specific case before you commit to anything.

When you're ready to book, the scheduled per-person weeks go through Spice Escapes, Casa Agara's booking partner — ATOL protected (licence 9046) and over 45 years in hosted holidays. Sort the food conversation first, though. Ask about your diet here, or see the weeks once you're happy.