Spanish meals: more to learn than just tapas and eating late

“No. Vermú.” With that, Ana denied my late-morning request for café con leche and puzzled me further about Spanish meal times and traditions. I had more to learn than just how to order tapas and eat dinner at 11 p.m.

Even with our Spanish family to guide us, learning all the ins and outs of Spanish meal times and food traditions has been a multi-year learning curve. Like most first-time visitors to Spain, we knew we’d love tapas and knew that dinner is super late. But oh, there’s so much more!

Nothing marks you as a newbie more than looking for bacon and eggs at breakfast, expecting lunch at noon or dinner at 6, eating paella for dinner, or ordering a coffee at noon or with lunch. They eat four to six meals a day, and breakfast isn’t the most important one – it’s lunch.

During our 2016 visit to meet our “Spanish daughter” Roxy’s family (she lived with us for a year in Canada to learn English and we’ve become like family since), we shook our heads and smiled at these strange new traditions, but we just followed the family and didn’t venture out on our own. That came later, during a visit in 2019 and then many times after we moved to Portugal in 2022. Each visit has yielded additions to our store of experience and enlightenment about Spanish meal times.

Let me take you through a day of Spanish meal times, including when it’s safe to order coffee.

Desayuno (early breakfast), 7 to 9 a.m.

The early breakfast is quick and simple, something to get you started after you wake up. Think the three Cs: coffee, chocolate, carbs. A small pastry, a croissant filled with chocolate, or toast, plus coffee or hot chocolate. Popular items in restaurants include pan con tomate, and churros and chocolate.

Churros and chocolate – yes, dessert for breakfast. Dip crispy churros (like long, skinny donuts) in chocolate sauce that’s so thick you can literally stand a spoon up in it. Roxy enjoyed that for breakfast when we explored Madrid together; at home, she has chocolate milk with either pan con tomate or pan con avocados.

My favourite is pan con tomate. To make it, toast a thick slice of bread, spread it with olive oil, top with freshly grated tomato (not the skins), drizzle with more olive oil and sprinkle generously with salt. Restaurants often include freshly squeezed orange juice and a coffee. My Spanish coffee order is café con leche – espresso with steamed milk. Yes, it’s safe to order coffee for desayuno.

Almuerzo (second breakfast), 9 to 11 a.m.

Almuerzo sounds closer to a North American breakfast or lunch, but it comes mid-morning. Coworkers often take a break to go out for almuerzo together.

“Kids usually have a sandwich or fruit when they are at school, in one of the recess times,” explained Roxy. “For adults, it’s usually something like two fried eggs, some French fries and some chorizo or longaniza (another type of sausage).”

Adults also have sandwiches sometimes. Navigating the many names for sandwiches is daunting; usually it depends on the type of bread. For example, a bocadillo is made with a half-length baguette, 10 to 12 inches. Fillings can include jamon, cheese, tortilla, fried calamari, anchovies, tuna or grilled chicken. A waiter in Valladolid told us a “pulga de jamon” is on smaller bread than the bocadillo.  

People sometimes have a beer with almuerzo. If they have a coffee, it comes after the meal, not with.

Vermú (Vermouth time), noon to 1 p.m.

Vermú is the snack time that really threw me.

In late morning, anywhere from noon (yes, that’s late morning) to 1 p.m., Spanish people have a snack to tide them over until lunch. (Traditions vary depending on what region you’re in. But in Zaragoza, between Madrid and Barcelona, our family calls it vermú.)

“It’s usually a smaller thing, but can turn into lunch,” said Roxy. “You meet with friends and have a few tapas with the vermú drink and then head to lunch.”

During our October 2022 visit to experience the Fiestas del Pilar, we stopped into a bar for a drink after a morning parade. Perfect time for a coffee, thought I. When Ana (Roxy’s dad’s partner) asked what I wanted, I replied: “Café con leche.” I was so wrong.

“No. Vermú!” she replied firmly. No debate. She went off to order vermouths with lemonade for us and a beer for Bill. I was confused, but without Roxy there to explain (she was at work), I just shrugged and drank this new-to-me concoction. Ana also returned with some delectable tapas: shrimp with mayonnaise on skewers with an olive, and boquerones – small anchovies in vinegar. ¡Me gusta!  

Fast forward to Easter 2024, when I tried again to order a late-morning coffee with our snack of fried artichoke (scrumptious). Ana and Roxy explained that during vermú, you never order coffee; that’s when you order vermouth, or another alcoholic drink such as beer or wine.

Really? I thought they might be teasing me, until I saw a sign behind the bar: “A partir de las 12:00 horas, ya no se hacen cafés. Disculpen las molestias.” which means “From 12:00 on, we don’t make coffee. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

Ahhh. That was a turning point for me, when I truly understood there was a complexity to Spanish meal times and traditions, through which I was still blundering.

Comida (lunch), 1 to 3 p.m.

Coffee goes with desayuno but not with any other meal (comida, almuerzo, vermú, tapas, or cena); it comes after the meal, with dessert.

In North America, breakfast is said to be “the most important meal of the day,” nutritionally speaking. In Spain, it’s lunch. Nutritionally and socially and size-wise – it’s the biggest meal, with at least three courses.

The first course is a starter – a plate of jamon, cheese, olives, and bread, plus wine or beer. I’m usually full after that. But then comes the hearty main course of grilled meat or fish, paella, pasta. And a big salad. And then dessert. And then – only then! – may you have a coffee.  

Again, the café con leche tripped me up. We went looking for comida in the new village of Belchite, waiting for our 4 p.m. tour of the old village that was bombed during the Spanish Civil War but never rebuilt.

“We’ll see if we can find a restaurant that will take us at 1 o’clock,” said Roxy.

We found one just opening – we were the first lunch customers. I really wanted a coffee but can’t have caffeine much past noon or I can’t sleep, so I wanted it right away. If I had to wait until after lunch, it could be 3:30 p.m.

So, I ordered one. The waiter looked puzzled. Ana was aghast, and spoke with the waiter in Spanish. It sounded like they agreed I was nuts. Roxy was laughing too hard to help with translating.

I went off to the washroom, not knowing if I would indeed get my coffee, but when I returned, there it was, sitting on the table, waiting accusingly for me. Ana was still so dumbfounded that she took my photo and sent it to Luis (Roxy’s dad) asking him to guess who had ordered a coffee with lunch. Luis replied “Kathryn” right away, generating more laughter at my expense.

Comida is such an important Spanish meal time that stores, businesses, schools, and offices close from about 1:30 to 4:30. People take time to enjoy their lunch, and possibly take a siesta, although that tradition is not as prevalent as it used to be. Commuters don’t have time to go home; instead, they relax with their friends or coworkers and chat.

Most restaurants offer a fixed-price lunch special called menú del día. Even small restaurants that look like snack bars offer the menú del día, not the sandwiches we were looking for one day on our own. Ah well. Go with the flow. We ordered the menú del día, starting with soup and white asparagus spears, then grilled chicken for me and grilled pork for Bill, with homemade chips, plus wine, bread, dessert, coffee and water. It was way more food than we’d wanted, but we also knew it was another 8 to 10 hours until dinner time.

Weekend comida with family, 2 p.m. to… whenever

For one family lunch with us, Luis made paella, closely supervised by his sister, Marina.

Extended families often get together for a big lunch on weekends or holidays. Roxy’s family always gathers when we visit. (Now here’s a meal tradition that I understood! My extended family in Canada got together for long Sunday lunches at my grandparents’ home when I was growing up.)

One time, Luis made seafood paella in a huge gas-fired paella pan. His sister, Marina, who is also an excellent cook, supervised. As the shrimp and mussels and rice bubbled in its saffron sauce, we sat around a long table nibbling on the starters: plates of thin jamon, sliced chorizo, and gildas (mini-shish-kebabs of olive, pickled pepper, and anchovy). Beer, red wine, and white wine flowed generously.

Many tourists in Spain want to order paella for dinner, and you can certainly get it in restaurants that cater to tourists. But not so for Spanish families. “We don’t usually eat paella for dinner, no,” said Roxy. “Paella is something that we would do as a family lunch so it’s more popular on the weekends when we can get together.”

Barbecuing was a job for men and beer. Roxy’s cousin Amaia demonstrated how to ready the grilled green onions for eating, dipping first into the creamy red sauce.

Another time, Luis and José-Luis (Roxy’s cousin) barbecued, with help from Bill and beer. They started the wood-fired barbecue several hours before they put the artichokes on to grill. And then green onions, called calçots – much bigger than our usual green onions. When cooked, you grasp the root end, and tug gently on the green end to remove the charred leaves and reveal the enticingly smoky tender insides. You dip them in a red sauce made of baked garlic, tomatoes, bread, and ground almonds, then whirled in a food processor. You tilt your head back, hold the calçot up above your open mouth and lower in slowly as you chew. Messy, but oh so mmm.

After those, we ate the grilled artichokes. Then came the meat – chorizo, a mild sausage, morcilla (blood sausage, with cinnamon in it) and lamb chops. Marina had made a lasagna-like dish using breaded and fried thinly sliced eggplant instead of noodles. Marvellous.  

I had baked a date-nut loaf – a recipe that came from my grandmother – and contributed that to the buffet of desserts: a lovely flan topped with fresh fruit, several kinds of cream-filled puff pastries, and a French toast-like slice covered with sugar, called torrija. (I received many compliments on my loaf, including from Marina, who asked for the recipe.)

Dessert signaled the start of…

Sobremesa (dessert time +), after comida

Sobremesa is another Spanish meal time tradition that confused me for awhile. “Sobremesa” means “dessert” in Portuguese and I assumed, when I heard the word uttered by Spaniards, that they were also talking about the wide array of sweets that came after the family comida. But then I’d see “Postres” on menus, which means “desserts,” so I was puzzled.

However, while researching Spanish meal times, I discovered that sobremesa refers to that extended time of relaxing and socializing after a long lunch.

“The main courses are done and people are just sitting around the table talking, but there’s some kind of sweets or desserts on the table and people are usually having some drinks,” said Roxy.

That’s exactly what happened – comida naturally slid into sobremesa and lasted longer than the lunch itself. People chatted, picked at the remaining desserts, and told stories and jokes. We’d already consumed many bottles of beer and wine, but out came the cava (Spanish sparkling wine) followed by gin-and-tonics, and then a Bailey’s type creamy liqueur called Ruavieja Crema.

“Sobremesa is about prolonging the lunch because you’ve had such a good time that you don’t want it to end; if you leave the table, the spell is broken,” explained Mike Randolph in an excellent story about sobremesa. “Jokes never land better than when the listener is well fed and, ideally, a little bit tipsy. All you have to do is say something remotely funny, and even if you mess it up you’ll likely still get a laugh. Actually, especially if you mess it up.” 

That, too, happened. Ana told and retold my café con leche faux pas and I took a lot of teasing.

Luis offered me a café con leche, and he laughed when I realized he’d substitute the Ruavieja for the milk. It went down a treat! Then Luis waved the liqueur bottle at me with raised eyebrows, asking if I wanted another.

“Si, café con leche, sin café,” I replied, to everyone’s merriment. That meant “Yes, coffee with milk, without coffee.”      

We ate steadily from 2:30 to about 8 p.m. About 10:45, Marina asked if we wanted cena (dinner). We all groaned.

Roxy confirmed what I suspected about sobremesa: “This is a dangerous practice,” she said. “It can easily go on for hours and become merienda… and then cena…”

Merienda (afternoon snack), 5 to 7 p.m.

Luis received a full jamon as a Christmas gift from his employer – a common gesture of thanks to employees. Slices of jamon, or bocadillos con jamon, are popular for merienda.

Assuming you haven’t spent the entire afternoon eating at a family comida, merienda is your friend and saviour when restaurants are closed between lunch and tapas time. Kind of like a British high tea, merienda is a mid-day snack (yes, 5 to 7 p.m. is mid-day).

People sometimes have a sweet snack, such as a muffin, cheesecake, flan, churros, or fruit. Other times it will be savoury, such as bread, croissant, cheese or the much-praised Spanish jamon, which plays a star role in merienda.

For me, the perfect pick-me-up is the bocadillo – a half-length baguette spread with olive oil and stuffed with slices of tender jamon (like Italian prosciutto or Portuguese presunto, but be sure to praise jamon as much better). Many shops sell nothing but jamon and bocadillos.

The ubiquitous and delicious tortilla is another good choice. Nothing like a Mexican tortilla, a Spanish tortilla is like a thick, cheesecake-dimensioned omelette filled with potatoes and onions. For a full-carb delight, try a baguette filled with tortilla or fried calamari.  

Roxy said some people have a later and bigger merienda and then not have dinner afterwards – the merienda-cena.

Tapas (appetizers), for vermú, comida or cena

Tapas can be works of art – as mouthwatering as they are beautiful.

Mmm tapas. These small appetizers served with wine or beer are also your friend, while you wait for any meal but especially before the late dinner. Like with sobremesa, people socialize over tapas – are we sensing a theme to Spanish meal times?

Tapas isn’t a timed meal, like the others, but more a style of meal you can have. You might ask someone “What do you want to do for dinner/lunch – pizza, Indian, tapas?” explained Roxy. “When you ask someone to go out for tapas, it usually means that’s going to be your lunch or your dinner.”

Tapas are also served with vermú and some bars include free tapas when you order drinks.  

Some luscious tapas we’ve had include garlic shrimp, patatas bravas (fried potatoes with spicy sauce), small green padron peppers, croquettes filled with meat or seafood, jamon and cheese in countless concoctions, tortilla, garlic mushrooms on skewers, boquerones (marinated anchovies), torrezno (crispy fried pork skin – sounds gross but it’s delicious), and beautifully arranged ingredients atop slices of toasted bread.

Eating tapas is easy. Perfecting the art of the tapas-bar order takes experience and skill. In 2016, we followed Luis blindly from one tapas bar to the next. He ordered and paid, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely but didn’t learn how to do it on our own. Over subsequent Zaragoza visits, we picked up more tapas tips from observing Luis and José-Luis as we bar-hopped around the El Tubo area.

• People usually eat tapas standing at the bar or high tables, even spilling onto the street when it’s crowded, rather than sitting at a table.
• In the Basque region of Spain, tapas are called pintxos.
• Check out the array of tapas on offer before you order your drink.
• Sometimes tapas come free when you order a drink; other times you pay a euro or three, depending on the ingredients.

Our most important lesson has been that the tapas experience improves immensely in the company of Luis, José-Luis or Roxy. She’s learned well from her father and teaches us.

In Madrid, we had a tapas-crawl dinner with Roxy at the Mercado de San Miguel. First, we toured the market to scope out the best places, then returned to four places to order, including the all-tuna tapas place.

During our long drives from Portugal to Zaragoza, we’ve stopped in different cities for breaks, and our confidence with finding good tapas on our own has grown each time.  

• In Salamanca, we ordered various small-plate dishes in a restaurant. It was okay, but not the stand-at-the-bar fun experience we sought.
• In Valladolid, we found a bar, sat at the bar, ordered wine and beer, and received free tapas as well. Our first free tapas! We enjoyed the small plate of thinly sliced chorizo with tiny breadsticks.
• In Segovia, we sat on a terrace, ordered glasses of local red wines, and were delighted when the waiter brought a small plate of tapas. The garlicky spare ribs were wonderful; the croquettes were… not. I think they were filled with lard; even Bill couldn’t finish them and he’ll eat practically anything. However, with the splendid wine and romantically sparkling view of Segovia at night, our confidence with tapas expanded.

Cena (dinner), 9 to 11 p.m.

Luis makes tempting tortillas for cena, usually accompanied by a salad of tomatoes and onion. One night we experienced roasted sheep’s head. Want the eyeball?

Like most visitors, we knew before going to Spain that dinner is late, really late. But it didn’t really sink in until our first visit in 2016. We walked through the dark, deserted streets of Roxy’s neighbourhood, ostensibly headed to a local restaurant. Nary a soul around. This can’t be right, I thought. It’s 11 p.m. Everything is closed. But then Luis pulled open a door (no sign) and led us into a warm, light-filled space packed with what seemed to be the entire neighbourhood enjoying dinner, including families with young children. It blew our minds.

Cena is usually a lighter meal than comida: salad, tortilla (Spanish-style omelette), omelette (North American style), broth with pasta, perhaps a plate of sliced sausage or cheese. Sometimes it can include meat, such as roasted sheep’s head. When we went grocery shopping one day at about 8 p.m., Luis pointed out the sheep’s heads, assuring us they were tasty and traditional. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s try them!” He roasted them in the oven with potato slices, and they were actually good. I declined the eyeball, however, leaving that for Luis, who popped both right into his mouth.

When eating out, it’s difficult to find a restaurant open before 9 p.m. In 2019, when we cycled the Camino de Santiago, we went looking for dinner in a small Spanish town at 7:30 p.m. After a long day of pedaling up hills, we were starving. Every restaurant was closed. Finally, about 8 p.m. we spotted people inside a restaurant, eating, so we opened the door. Turns out that was the staff, eating their early dinner before the restaurant opened at 9 p.m. We practically begged for food and they took pity on us, but explained that we had to vacate the table by 10 p.m. Not a problem!

In January 2024 in Valladolid, we were again starving by 8 p.m. and just couldn’t hold out for a real dinner. We found a bakery with a restaurant area where we had crispy chicken burgers with queso, homemade potato chips, red wine, and a slice of roscon for dessert. I wrote in my journal: “I’m afraid we’re not cut out to be Spaniards. We just can’t eat that late! Try as we might, on our own we can’t do it. We adapt when we’re with Roxy, but we need her leadership.” 

However, two months later, we did it! We had dinner at 10:15 p.m. on our own in Segovia. We were so proud of ourselves that we sent a photo to Roxy, telling her to note the clock in the background. I could practically feel her amused eyeroll through the pixels.

Mastering the coffee has proven to be my biggest Spanish meal time challenge. To summarize: It’s allowed with desayuno, but after any other meal, it’s only to be had with dessert.

“Coffee is not allowed at vermú,” Roxy emphasized.

I asked her if we’d committed any other faux pas that people were too polite to comment upon.

“The coffee thing is the only one that really sticks out,” she replied. With a laughing-with-tears emoji.

Next time we go, I’ll get it right…

We’ve eaten late dinners in Spain in 2016, 2022, 2023 and twice in 2024. Find out where we are right now by visiting our ‘Where’s Kathryn?’ page.