Spain
A country that eats late, shares everything and turns lunch into the most important meeting of the day.
Dinner doesn’t start until the sun is long gone, and even then it comes in instalments. You stand three-deep at a Seville bar, a plate of olives and a wedge of tortilla appearing without being asked, the floor littered with napkins because that is how you know the place is any good. Eating in Spain is a contact sport, played standing up, in company, for hours.
The building blocks are few and fiercely good: olive oil poured like it’s free, a leg of jamón clamped to the counter and carved to order, ripe tomato rubbed onto grilled bread with a clove of garlic. Then the regions take over — a proper Valencian paella built on rabbit and beans over a wood fire, never the tourist seafood heap; the Basque country’s pintxos speared on bread and lined up like jewellery; Galician octopus dressed with nothing but paprika and oil. Come at ten at night, order more than you need, and let the small plates keep coming until someone finally calls for the bill.
- jamón ibérico
- paella valenciana (rabbit & bean rice)
- tortilla española (potato omelette)
- pintxos (Basque bar bites)
- gambas al ajillo (garlic prawns)
- churros con chocolate
